Obama's Presidency Has Been Written Off Because We're At That Point In The Cycle

"238 Presidential Historians Rate Obama Near Top; Dubyah Near Bottom"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/06/238-presidential-historians-rank-obama.html

***

Alan: Many Americans badmouth Obama out of perverse determination to resurrect an "impossible past" based on "impossible principles." 

Currently, Obama's low approval numbers arise from his failure to "kick ass" in Iraq and Syria.

Legions of dimwitted citizens assume "God" will automatically warrant American victory if only Uncle Sam exhibits adequate aggression.

At the same time, few Americans would authorize (and none would send their own children into) a ground war where the prospect of killing American troops would be our enemy's best possible recruitment tool.

Osama bin Laden was shrewd enough to goad the United States in this very way.

We would wisely remember that the mythic account of Hydra is not just a "story." It is how violent attempts to eliminate evil often work out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lernaean_Hydra

In passing, I note the never-homilized "saying" of Jesus: "Resist not evil." https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5%3A39&version=GNV

As a nation we prefer the paralysis of (presumed) "perfection" to the actual, limited "good" that is within our grasp. 

Before the decade is out, it will be evident that Obama accomplished extraordinary good in face of unprecedented opposition.

***

"American Conservatives And Oppositional Defiant Disorder"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/09/arrested-development-american.html

***

"Most of these end-of-Obama sentiments are sincerely felt, and there are plenty of Obama-specific reasons for making these judgments. Yet they all lack historical perspective. In fact, the notion that the Obama presidency is all but over has arrived right on schedule for any second-term president. By this stage of their presidencies, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, like Reagan before them, were all being written off as finished, not least of all by those who had been their strongest supporters. However, history also demonstrates a larger truth that the commentators ignore today. Quite a few of the most significant achievements of the Reagan, Clinton and Bush presidencies took place in their final two years." James Mann in The New York Times