This week’s National Journal poll of political bloggers asked for a grade for President Obama’s foreign policy. The average grade from the Left was a C. From the Right, it was a D-. I gave him the highest grade of any voter, which was a B, and explained: “Finally did the right thing on the Afghanistan surge. His most important speech to the world — in Oslo — was magnificent. Badly mishandled Honduras at the start by opposing the lawful removal of Zelaya, but no long-term harm was done.” Next year’s grade might be much lower, in that the shared Clinton-Bush-Obama policy of all talk and no action about Iran’s nuclear weapons development may get to the terminal point of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.
Question 2 asked the Left “How much is the Democratic Party to blame for Congress’ low standing in the polls?” The Right was asked the same question about Republicans. Eighty-six percent of the Left said that Democrats were a “a great deal” or “somewhat” to blame. On the Right, nobody said that Republicans bore “a great deal” of the blame, but 57%, including me, voted for “somewhat.” I wrote: “When the Republicans took over Congress in 1995, they came in as reformers; by 2006, the Republicans had become participants in a culture of corruption (in both legal and illegal forms), and of abuse of the rights of the minority party. In 2007, the Democrats took power and promised reform, but they are acting just as corruptly and abusively (perhaps even more so). No wonder the public is cynical.”
rarango says:
Professor Kopel–did you take into consideration the recent trip to Asia and the removal of missile defense from Eastern Europe in consideration of the support Mr Obama received from the Chinese and Russians at COP15? So far its been all quid and no quo. You are a very easy grader, sir.
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December 18, 2009, 12:42 pmChris Travers says:
I don’t know about anyone else but I have stopped expecting anything above mediocre foreign policy from elected officials.
I also think our Congressional approach is fundamentally a problem. If we could have two reforms, I would be more optimistic. The first would be a One Issue One Bill Constitutional Amendment. The second would be to cut the congressional work week to two days a week....
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December 18, 2009, 12:44 pmGuest Again says:
“cut the congressional work week to two days a week....” ... in months with an “r” in them.
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December 18, 2009, 1:32 pmgeokstr says:
The problem with this survey, like others that ask whether we are unhappy with a given pol, or group of pols, or bill, or policy, is that when both left and right agree, it tells you nothing. The left will be unhappy when the object of the survey is not left enough, while the right will be unhappy when it’s not right enough.
So to solve the unhappiness of one side merely exacerbates the unhappiness of the other, but does nothing to bring them together over this apparent “agreement”. I would love to see an issue where both left and right agreed that the same thing needed to be done to fix it, but can’t hold my breath forever.
Even corruption, an issue you’d think might bring both sides together totally hinges on the definition of “corruption”. And that is controlled by whose side is getting to bury their snout deeper in the trough this cycle vs the last one.
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December 18, 2009, 1:37 pmGranite26 says:
D = 59% responsible...
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December 18, 2009, 1:40 pmlgm says:
Let’s grade on a curve. If you ask the same experts to compare Obama foreign policy to Bush foreign policy, 90% (a Bayesian estimate) would say Obama is far better. In rating a President, it is more useful to compare him to the probable alternatives rather than to some abstract standard.
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December 18, 2009, 1:48 pmSmooth, like a Rhapsody says:
Is Kopel’s grade a law school “B”, or an undergrad “B”?
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December 18, 2009, 2:07 pmTim J. says:
Bush is a highly improbable alternative, given term limits and all.
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December 18, 2009, 2:08 pmTwirip says:
You and your “experts” again. They seem to serve the sole purpose of telling you what you want to believe. It’s almost as if “experts” means “people who think like me”.
I’m sure a carefully selected choice of “experts” would say that Neville Chamberlain was the greatest foreign policy leader of the 20th century.
Given that Obama’s foreign policy is Bush’s foreign policy, on what factors other than their own biases would your “experts” make the determination you allege?
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December 18, 2009, 2:10 pmTwirip says:
Considering that the Democrats have been in control of Congress for three years now, perhaps we can finally start to point the finger at them.
Especially since they have taken the “abuses” which the GOP was supposedly guilty of and raised them to the tenth power.
I’ll say this much for the Pubbies, they never voted on a bill first and wrote it afterwards. These days that’s not something you can take for granted.
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December 18, 2009, 2:17 pmPLR says:
As a 2008 Obama supporter, I would give him a D. That C grade from the left is only going to continue to drop, and I can’t imagine that the D– grade from the right will ever get into the C range.
But on the bright side, we can absolutely rule out another President Clinton or Bush, and a President Emanuel.
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December 18, 2009, 2:50 pmGuy says:
I’m so glad these polls are taken, knowing the aggregate opinions on incredibly vague questions of a random sampling of semiprofessional blowhards of varying qualifications indexed according to partisanship is such a convenient alternative to informing myself or trying to formulate opinions based on facts.
Wow, and some people think the President and/or the Supreme Court have too much now power now; I can see using Apprendi–style reasoning to force Congress to split appropriations bills into thousands of separate votes, effectively resurrecting the line-item veto.
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December 18, 2009, 3:07 pmThe River Temoc, In Winter says:
So far its been all quid and no quo.
I disagree:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/world/18arms.html?scp=1&sq=russia%20%22arms%20control%22&st=cse
As for China, first off, the ballistic missile defense issue was a US-Russia issue, not a US-China one.
And second, continuing industrialization is a core interest for China (for that matter, preserving our smokestack industries is arguably a core interest for the US), and it’s not realistic to expect China to sacrifice that interest in exchange for a concession that’s important in Europe, but not elsewhere.
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December 18, 2009, 3:16 pmegd says:
Actually, reducing nuclear stockpiles is a win-win situation for Russia. The U.S. agrees to pay Russia to dismantle nuclear weapons, the U.S. reduces their own payload by a larger number of weapons (Russia has about 3,200 strategic weapons and the U.S. has about 5,000 strategic weapons), and Russia reduces their overhead for maintaining, securing, and controlling more nuclear weapons.
I do think that President Obama’s foreign policy will eventually result in some quo for our quid. But his foreign policy right now appears to be “let other countries be mean to the U.S. until they feel bad about it.”
It’s really no surprise that foreign countries cheered when a man with weak foreign policy experience and policy objectives won the 2008 election. It has nothing to do with wanting to work with the President.
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December 18, 2009, 3:46 pmPLR says:
That was one of the few things keeping him from getting an F from this grader.
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December 18, 2009, 3:49 pmLeo Marvin says:
A poor grade from bloggers, many if not most of whom seem to be on opposite partisan extremes, is high praise.
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December 18, 2009, 4:05 pmBloggers agree: Obama foreign policy not very good. Both parties deserves blame for public’s low opinion of Congress | Liberal Whoppers says:
[...] more: Bloggers agree: Obama foreign policy not very good. Both parties deserves blame for public’s low o... Share this [...]
Twirip says:
Now you’re striking a blow at the very heart of the internet. We’re all semiprofessional blowhards of varying qualifications.
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December 18, 2009, 5:03 pmlgm says:
True, but likely Republican candidates seem to suggest similar policies — unilateralism, etc.
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December 18, 2009, 5:24 pmGuy says:
Yes, but no one can question my right to view myself as having superior qualifications to all the other semiprofessional blowhards.
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December 18, 2009, 5:26 pmLeo Marvin says:
Guy,
What kind of self-respecting egomaniac are you? Don’t qualify it.
Be a man.
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December 18, 2009, 6:55 pmChris Travers says:
“The Budget” is arguably one issue.
Besides, most likely this would only come up when a law would be challenged in courts. For example, “the private insurance mandate is clearly unconstitutional because the same bill also addresses clearly unrelated issues of burden of proof regarding tax fraud.”
I would even be in favor of giving Congress substantial deference as to what constitutes “one issue.” However right now we end up with 1500 page bills that include too many unrelated changes.
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December 18, 2009, 7:12 pmCarey says:
I’m glad to see so many of Mr. Kopel’s foreign policy positions spelled out in one brief post. Not surprisingly, I disagree with all of them.
Ditto for his domestic policy positions.
Interesting, then, that the second amendment is the one issue where Kopel and I occasionally agree.
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December 18, 2009, 7:49 pmAllan Walstad says:
Two cheers for continued war-mongering, I see. Sad.
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ArthurKirkland says:
Can anyone identify a recent president with strong foreign policy experience and objectives?
Or, for that matter, a president of the past half-century whose performance with respect to foreign policy was strong?
I struggle to recall one whose performance was acceptable.
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December 19, 2009, 3:11 pmGuy says:
Damn, the irony is you couldn’t have told me not to qualify it if I had phrased it the way you suggest, because then you would be questioning my qualification.
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December 19, 2009, 7:11 pmLeo Marvin says:
Don’t you think I knew that?
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December 20, 2009, 8:28 pm