It's pretty hard to get labeled a failed president, and I doubt that Barack Obama will end up being considered a failure by historians. But one can make the argument that Obama is, in fact, a failure as president.
I'm assuming that the president will not have any additional domestic policy achievements in this term, and I'm assuming, too, that this term will be his ONLY term. (See the post just below this one for information on both of these assumptions.) So, on domestic policy anyway, I'm assuming that what the president has done is all he's going to do.
When President Obama took office, the biggest problem facing the country was the economy. That's gotten no better on Obama's watch, and in terms of the unemployment numbers, it's gotten worse.
In 2008/2009, the president himself, along with Republicans in Congress--though not most Americans--recognized the long-term budget deficit and the shaky financial footing of entitlement programs as a serious threat to the country's quality of life and quality of government. Progress on these issues, however, has been minimal, even trivial.
The president's other big domestic policy priority at the outset of his term was health care reform. He got that done, which would be a major achievement...if it were allowed to stand. But I don't think it will be. If the Supreme Court doesn't knock it down, it's likely that a Republican president will eviscerate it via executive order in 2013, or achieve outright repeal in concert with a Republican House and Senate. (Democrats in the Senate might try to filibuster, but the GOP can just use the reconciliation process, which only requires a bare majority. This is the same trick the Dems pulled to get Obamacare passed in the first place, so they won't be in much position to object when Republicans use it, too.)
These were the president's top domestic policy priorities, and they are all looking like failures. (As for global warming, illegal immigration, and the housing market, there's essentially nothing good to point to there, either.)
In foreign policy, killing Osama bin Laden was a BIG win...more in PR terms than in its impact on al Qaeda. Apart from that, though, there aren't any other high-profile achievements...we've just been holding the gains in Iraq, and grinding out progress in Afghanistan (which may very well be reversed when the troops start coming home).
There's another whole set of issues that political scientists and historians consider when sizing up a president--did he expand the power of the office? did he unify the nation or polarize it? did he change the political culture? was his presidency transformational? On all of these metrics, Obama has failed to live up to his own standards, let alone those of professional president-raters.
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So, there you have it. While I don't think President Obama will end up being thought of as a failure, I do think that "profound disappointment" is probably the best he can hope for.
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