Standing By Obama

Yesterday, Fred wrote a post titled “Stuck In The Middle With You” about his continued support for President Obama.  I feel the same way.  I was excited early on about Obama’s campaign, felt that he made smart choices then, and was thrilled to see him elected.  Obama took office under some of the most adverse circumstances of any president, with two wars in progress and an economy headed into free fall.

Now we find ourselves not even a year later and the beginning of a withdrawal from Iraq has not resulted in complete chaos there, the economy is showing signs of stabilization, and there is a good shot of actually getting some level of healthcare reform passed.  I think it is easy to find some degree of fault with each one of these, but if this were a company and I was on the board, I would feel the CEO is doing a good job as a leader.

The ultimate responsibility of a board member is to replace a CEO.  That is also the role of voters.  As such, it doesn’t matter what I think about the details of any particular decision (most of that would be second guessing with a fraction of the information), but rather what I believe about the overall effectiveness.  I sure wish more people would take that view, but in the meantime, I am glad that at least the President seems to think that is more important to be effective than right (or in this case: popular).