The Presidential Pros and Cons List (Part I)

Warning!

Fair warning: this is a long entry. Don’t bother commenting “TL;DR.” I wrote this to settle a number of ideas in my head, but not with the poor reader in mind. However, read on if you want. If you dare. Thanks! – Oliver
Voting
I received an early voting ballot for my district the other day. Yesterday Meg and I went to Red Lobster and then to see The Candidate. On the drive there, I asked Meg why she hadn’t gotten ballot yet, and if she was going to call to get signed up for early voting. She shrugged. “I don’t think I’m going to vote this election.”
“You mean the election this November? Why not?” I asked.
“I don’t really like my choices,” she said. “I don’t feel that either of them represent my views.”
“What about voting for the lesser of two weevils?” I asked, making an obscure reference to a joke in Master and Commander: Far Side of the World. I suspected that Meg just thought I said “evils,” because she ignored my joke by shrugging again.
The car ride lapsed into silence as I contemplated Meg’s reaction. In recent months I’ve developed a bigger interest in politics than I normally do, and have noticed my political preferences swinging towards the Democratic side. I consider myself an Independent, which is to say, I don’t like placing myself in an ideological camp that I don’t control. I may agree with Democrats on major issues, but I don’t always.
So perhaps it’s time to break out the Pros and Cons list regarding this coming November election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
Barack Obama / Joe Biden
I voted for Obama in 2008 for plenty of reasons. I still have the Pros and Cons list I wrote for that particular election. I think one of the primary contributions for that decision was because I didn’t want to have anything to do with Sarah Palin being VP. Neither, apparently, did the majority of Americans in 2008.
Pro > Obama is pro-choice.
There have been some fairly horrible laws passed recently that make it more difficult to get abortions, like Arizona’s House Bill 2036. At least Obama is not in favor of stopping abortion at the federal level, and presumably would veto any legislation that would violate a woman’s right to choose what grows inside her own body.
Pro > Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
Obama enacted healthcare reform on March 23, 2010. I’ve written about this before. I’m in favor of the PPACA.
Pro > Obama is pro-gay rights
On July 22, 2011, Obama signed the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law of the U.S. military, which lifted the 19-year-old law on September 20, 2011.
On May 9, 2012, Obama said in an ABC interview, “At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”
Under Obama’s presidency, four number of states have passed the legalization of marriage (Iowa (April 27, 2009), Vermont (Sept 1, 2009), New Hampshire (Jan 1, 2010), and New York (July 24, 2011), adding their names to the small but growing list of states which already included Massachusetts and Connecticut.
While these states’ brave and progressive changes weren’t because of Obama, Obama also didn’t do anything to prevent it either. Under the Defense of Marriage Act, same-sex marriages are not recognized federally. Obama’s administration instructed the Department of Justice to not enforce section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act.
Subjectively speaking, during Obama’s term as president, I have noticed a much more tolerant opinion from most people towards gay people and a more favorable view of their rights.
Pro > Obama ended the Iraq War
The Iraq War (the Second Gulf War) was one of the United States’ longest wars begun on March 20, 2003 when George W. Bush authorized the invasion of Iraq, ostensibly because of the threat of Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction.
The United States’ involvement in the Iraq War ended with the last of the U.S. troops withdrawing from Iraq on December 18, 2011.
While Obama doesn’t seem to ever mention it in his campaign for reelection, I do feel the U.S. no longer fighting the Iraq war was a good thing. I think avoiding war whenever possible is good, and Obama achieved this with Iraq.
Pro > Death of Osama bin Laden
On May 2, 2011, DEVGRU successfully completed an operation to kill Osama bin Laden. (As a side note, I didn’t know that SEAL Team 6 was dissolved in 1987, replaced by the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group, also known as DEVGRU.) While this has more to do with the achievements of the U.S. CIA and military, Obama authorized a tactical operation in Pakistan, which takes some balls.
Pro > Science
Obama is a good deal more pro-science than his predecessor, but hasn’t really gone out of his way to promote science either. He appointed Francis Collins to run the National Institutes of Health. Francis Collins, while having done great work with the Human Genome Project, is kind of a nutjob. He wrote in his book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, that he became a Christian when he saw an unexpected waterfall. Seriously.
During Obama’s administration we’ve seen both the end of the NASA shuttle program and the landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars.
Regarding the teaching of evolution in schools, Obama told the York Daily Record, “I think it’s a mistake to try to cloud the teaching of science with theories that frankly don’t hold up to scientific inquiry.”
On March 9, 2009, Obama signed an executive order repeating the Bush-era policy that limited federal tax dollars for embryonic stem cell research.
On the whole, I’m putting this in the “Pro” camp, but that’s probably just because GW Bush was so horribly, terribly anti-science and book learnin’.
Pro > Better Singer than Romney
Obama can sing better than Romney. Re: Obama sings Al Green.
Pro > Likeable Personality
Subjective moment here, but I think Obama and his family are genuinely nice people.
Pro > Good Rhetorician
Also subjective, but Obama is a good rhetorician, although he does tend to take too many pauses.
On the Fence > Religion
Obama isn’t an atheist nor a Muslim, even though I’ve heard people say both. From what I can tell, he is a mediocre Christian who doesn’t make a big deal about it. He does reference a deity now and then, but occasionally forgets. He didn’t mention a deity in his 2010 Thanksgiving proclamation, much to the chagrin of Fox News.
Obama doesn’t go to church on a regular basis. Gasp.
On the other hand, Obama has expanded faith-based programs, which I have always felt is a violation of the First Amendment’s establishment clause.
On the Fence > Economy
While many people gripe about the economy and the recession that hit the worst in 2008, I do not hold Obama responsible for it. He was handed a real turd by eight years of GW Bush, and has been slowly trying to turn it around. He’s slowly pulled us out of a recession. I don’t think Republican tactics would have done better.
During the GW Bush administration, the national debt started at $5.6 trillion and ended at $9.2 trillion, an increase in $3.6 trillion. The current national debt is $15.9 trillion, an unprecedented increase of $12.3 trillion. (Source: U.S. Treasury’s website.)
While the projected budget puts us at a lower number, it’s going to be hard to dig the government out of that much debt. Was this entirely Obama’s fault? No. Would anyone else have done better with what was handed to him? I’m not convinced.
On the other hand, military spending could be cut back significantly, no? Speaking of which…
Con > War in Afghanistan
Obama didn’t start the war in Afghanistan, but he didn’t end it either. It’s the U.S.’s longest running war (going on almost 11 years now) and I think it’s time to end it. Obama did state that he would withdraw 23,000 by the end of this summer, but there is no end date for the war in Afghanistan.
In an interview with ABC on June 27, 2010, CIA Director Leon Panetta stated that the number of al Qaeda remaining in Afghanistan is “relatively small” and that, “At most, we’re looking at 50 to 100, maybe less.” Wasn’t the point of being in Afghanistan to root out al Qaeda? Seems like there are more al Qaeda-like thugs in North Mali than there are in Afghanistan right now.
Afghanistan seems to be the elephant in the room that doesn’t get talked about.
Con > Support of MPAA and RIAA, COICA, SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, CISPA
The Obama administration has taken a pretty hardline stance again online free speech and privacy rights. Joe Biden told reporters on June 17, 2010, “Piracy is theft. Clean and simple. It’s smash and grab. It ain’t no different than smashing a window at Tiffany’s and grabbing [merchandise].”
Later that year, ICE of the Department of Homeland Security shut down about 76 of website domains without a court order, mostly websites that trafficked in counterfeit brand name goods like purses, and some file sharing websites, like Torrent-Finder.com and RapGodfathers.com.
A whole series of bills have tried to pass through Congress, most notably SOPA and PIPA, laws that would have essentially crippled the Internet and free speech in general. Thankfully, corporations and organizations such as Wikipedia, Google, Mozilla, and Flickr, and Americans at large protested in time to stop the bills from passing.
The latest rendition of Internet spying and monitoring is the deal that the RIAA and MPAA met with most major U.S. ISPs to start policing copyright. Starting July 1, 2012, Comcast, Time Warner, and Verizon are among the ISPs preparing to implement a graduated response to piracy. Essentially, ISPs agreed to spy on its customers, and at its own discretion, decide who was sharing copyrighted material and “educate them” into stopping. If the customers continue their undesired behavior, they will get more dire warnings until their Internet connection is slowed or stopped.
I find the development disturbing for a number of reasons, chief among them: I don’t want to be spied on without my consent. The websites I visit, the packets of information I share with other people, the things I write online, are my business; not the ISPs, not the government’s. I should be presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. ISPs aren’t a court of law nor the police and do not have the right to determine whether someone is breaking the law.
The MPAA and RIAA have powerful lobbyists. Just look at MPAA’s Chairman and CEO is: Chris Dodd, former U.S. Senator from Connecticut. The comfortable relationship between powerful lobbyists, corporations, and the government makes me uneasy at the best of times.
Con > Use of Drones to Kill “Combatants”
Obama personally oversees a “kill list” for drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan. Giving anyone the ability to kill with discretion, without being proven guilty in a court of law, is scary business. Add to this that the government counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, as well as drone strikes on innocent civilians, makes for an unpleasant picture.
Con > State Secrecy
Despite running of a platform of transparency, Obama’s administration has prosecuted whistleblowers and information leakers. For example, according to the Guardian, CIA veteran John Kiriakou was indicted on April 3, 2012 under the Espionage Act, which was intended to combat the threat from spies, not internal dissenters: “Kiriakou, who was a counter-terrorism expert in Pakistan and helped capture senior Al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah, has been a vocal critic of waterboarding. He spoke to journalists and wrote a book about it, calling it torture and exposing it as a deliberate policy, rather than the actions of a few rogues. Now a hefty jail term could be his reward.”
Con > No End to Guantanamo Prison
Obama promised to shut down Guantanamo Prison when he became president, but the prison remains open. It celebrated its tenth birthday, actually. It started as a shady place to hold people the U.S. government didn’t like without habeas corpus until the Supreme Court ruled for the prisoners’ right to habeas corpus on June 12, 2008.
I know it’s a sticky issue, since you don’t want to actually free bad guys, but that’s why you put them on trial and convict them after, you know, proving that they’re actually bad. It’s kind of a long-standing American concept, actually.
Con > Solyndra
The Obama administration gave the energy company Solyndra $527 million on Sept 2, 2009. On Aug 31, 2011, Solyndra announced it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The dirty part was that, according to emails two weeks before Obama took office, the Energy Department panel considering the loan unanimously decided not to proceed. And yet, Solyndra was the first company to be approved for a loan guarantee under the Obama administration.
I suspect Obama wanted to go on record for being for “green energy,” and overrode whatever misgivings the Energy Department had for Solyndra. If Solynda hadn’t failed so magnificently, Obama could have touted himself as taking leadership to promote domestic, clean energy. But the decision backfired and made Obama look like he doesn’t listen to his top advisors. Perhaps he learned from the mistake, but I still consider it a point for bad leadership.
Con > Operation Fast and Furious
While it was the ATF’s idea to allow Mexican drug cartels to purchase weapons in the United States so we could track them… somehow…, it did happen on Obama’s watch. The scandal kicked into high gear when Border Agent Brian Terry died in a gunfight with five suspected illegal immigrants on Dec 14, 2010. The guns found on the Mexicans? Yeah, they were from Operation Fast and Furious.
And while Obama said on Univision on March 23, 2012 that neither he nor Attorney General Eric Holder authorized Fast and Furious, Obama invoked executive privilege over 1,300 documents that Congress wanted from the DOJ regarding the operation. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Congress returned fire by holding Holder in contempt, a move I agreed with for once, even though the left-leaning pundits called it a purely political move.
Tomorrow…

Tomorrow I’ll post Part II, regarding Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Ron Paul, etc.