Of course, the presidency is not a lab experiment. We cannot tweak a few variables and rerun the last few years to test their effect. In that way, reviewing the flaws in a presidency is a hard thing to do well, and an impossible thing to do perfectly. Every political pundit \u2014 indeed, every citizen \u2014 has ideas about what could have been done better. But they have no way to know if their ideas really would have led to a better outcome, or simply to new, and perhaps even worse, problems. It is not Sullivan, Scheiber, or Fallows\u2019s fault that time only flows in one direction.<\/p>\n
What we do know is what Obama has actually done. Health-care reform. Dodd-Frank. The stimulus bill. The 2010 tax deal. The stepped-up campaign of drone strikes in Afghanistan. The raid on Osama bin-Laden\u2019s compound in Pakistan. The rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline. Solyndra. The appointments of Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. The continuation of the Bush administration\u2019s expansive view of executive authority, particularly as relates to the war on terror. The end of the Iraq War.<\/p>\n
We also know what Obama wants to do. Raise taxes on the wealthy. Invest in infrastructure. Address climate change. Reduce the deficit, albeit on a more gradual path than many Republicans say they would prefer. Roll back Citizens United. End the war in Afghanistan. And, perhaps most importantly, entrench the major pieces of legislation passed in his first term.<\/p>\n
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