Barack Obama: A Year of Accomplishments

Here's a letter that was posted to a group I belong to. I only wish I had written this:

I’ve never seen a president inherit the enormity and severity of problems that you found awaiting you when you entered the Oval Office.

You owe us no apology, Mr. President,. We owe you an apology because we held you to an impossible, unrealistic double standard! We should have known based on our own personal life experiences that we can’t always achieve success in everything we attempt.

You made us many promises, which I believe you sincerely, intended to keep. Yes, it is true that you have not fulfilled all of them; but, we need to understand that you are only human. What we failed to realize is that not only were your intentions good, but your efforts were Herculean. If all of us fulfilled all of our promises, there would be no divorce, and there would be no infidelity. Common sense, which seems not to be common anymore, would have made us realize that with the vast and varied problems you inherited along with cantankerous, obstreperous, contemptuous, mean-spirited, evil, jealous, malicious, vicious and spiteful people pulling for you to fail, you swam upstream.

Enumerating just a few of your accomplishments extrapolated from a Sam Stein article entitled, “Obama’s First 100 Days: 10 Achievements You Didn’t Know About.”
‘
1. Health Care: “…appropriated $19 billion in the stimulus package to help
implement an electronic medical record system…”
2. Transportation: “…the Obama Department of Transportation has approved
2,500 highway projects…Touting the impact, DOT officials say 260,000 jobs are
expected from this investment…”
3. Education: “…a $2,500 tax credit to help offset the cost of tuition (among other
expenses) for those seeking a college education. Nearly five million families are
expected to save $9 billion according to Treasury officials…”
4. Cars: “…the president has put in place the framework for an industry recovery.
Perhaps the most significant of steps was to allocate $2 billion in stimulus cash
for advanced batteries systems. One high-ranking Hill aide called battery
technology: the next big frontier in the automotive world…”
5. Pakistan: “…the administration’s diplomatic team, with a major assist from
Japan, secured $5 billion in aid commitments ‘to bolster the country’s economy
and help it fight terror and Islamic radicalism’ within the country…”
6. Cities: “…More than any prior president, Obama has put a spotlight on America’s
struggling cities, even creating an office of Urban Policy in the White House.
Through the Recovery Act, DOJ secured $2billion for Byrne Grants, which funds
anti-gang and anti-gun task forces. The money, cut during the Bush years, is
expected to have massive ramifications on inner-city crime and violence…”
7. Engaging the Muslim World: “…to his proclamation that ‘America is not at war
with Islam’…He has been able to dramatically change America’s image in that
region.…”
8. Forests: “...has put under federal protection more than two million acres of
wilderness, thousands of miles of river and a host of national trails and parks.
The conservation effort – the largest in the last 15 years – came with the stroke
of a pen when Obama signed the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 in
late March.”

I’ll cite a few more culled from Robert P. Wilson, Ph.D., Coordinator for American Studies at Lynn University.

1. Instituted enforcements for equal pay for women.
2. Appointed the first Latina to the Supreme Court.
3. Improving veterans’ benefits.
4. Ended the stop-loss policy that kept soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan longer than
their enlistment date.
5. Ended previous policy of awarding no-bid defense contracts.
6. Limited the salaries of senior White House aides, cut to $100,000.
7. Announced the long term development of a national energy grid with renewable
sources and cleaner, efficient energy production.
8. Instituted a new focus on mortgage fraud.

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Given all he's been up against Obama deserves credit for all that he has done. He deserves our support.