"Thinking Fast and Slow" -- Kahneman

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18. I find that a difficult question to resolve, what to think of his performance so far.

On the one hand, as the first AA President, I think his first and most important job was to "succeed", to get re-elected, which he did, and handily too, brilliantly. And I find that an inarguable good thing, very important, maybe the most important thing, that he could do.

And he also seems to have brought into being the first new ruling electoral coalition since the "Solid South" gave way to the "Southern Strategy"; based on women, "minorities", and the young, and I find that very hopeful, the prospect of finally breaking the stranglehold of the plutocrats, war lovers, and racists on our politics.

But i find it easy to argue that he started out naive and has been more cautious than might have been necessary, and he is clearly not a "left-winger" such as you or I would think of it. But then so were Carter and Clinton, in their individual ways, if anything O has been a quick study. So it's also easy to come up with excuses. It's mainly the extension of the wars I find hard to swallow, strategically I see it, but morally and ethically I cannot.

So I'm kind of waiting to see how the 2nd term goes before I try to sum things up. So far there has been much to complain of, and yet we can already see a more assertive tone in the second term, and I think he is going to beat the Republicans like a gong from here on out, as long as he keeps the Democratic Congress at his back and stays safe.