Andrew Sullivan pense que Barack Obama est le politicien le plus efficace de Washington et il dit pourquoi:
"Here are the political accomplishments: defeating the most heavily favored party machine in decades (the Clintons) while actually bringing his biggest rival into his cabinet, where she has performed extraordinarily well; helping to cement the GOP's broad identity as extremists opposed to compromise; entrenching black and Hispanic loyalty to his party; retaining solid favorables and not-too-shabby approval ratings during the worst recession since the 1930s. 44 percent of the country still (rightly) blame Bush for this mess, only 15 percent blame Obama.
On policy: ending the US torture regime; prevention of a second Great Depression; enacting universal healthcare; taking the first serious steps toward reining in healthcare costs; two new female Supreme Court Justices; ending the gay ban in the military; ending the Iraq war; justifying his Afghan Surge by killing bin Laden and now disentangling with face saved; firming up alliances with India, Indonesia and Japan as counter-weights to China; bailing out the banks and auto companies without massive losses (and surging GM profits); advancing (slowly) balanced debt reduction without drastic cuts during the recession; and financial re-regulation."
Je suis d'accord avec Sullivan (on va dire : comme d'habitude), j'ai bien compris ce que les gens de gauche lui reprochaient, en gros sa tendance à pencher vers la droite et son goût du compromis, son coté raisonnable, tête froide, mais je comprends moins ce que lui reprochent les indépendants, les gens de centre droit. Je pense que son principal défaut est de ne pas avoir su communiquer efficacement sur son action.
Et Sullivan de conclure avec optimisme :
"When I read commentaries expounding on the notion that this man is competely out of his depth, I just have to scratch my head. Given his inheritance, this has been the most substantive first term since Ronald Reagan's. And given Obama's long-game mentality, that is setting us up for a hell of a second one."