When he made the compromise he did with Hilary during his first election I knew then he was going to be a political creature (and I was behind him).

I don't think Obama will be noteworthy in history outside of being the first black president. Obamacare will not be noteworthy either unless it transforms into something more meaningful.

If you think about it, the praise he gets so often is that he's a "classy guy", that should say something. 8 years in office and him being classy is the thing people think of most when considering him?

We haven't had a someone from outside since Carter or even Reagan. Regardless of how you feel about Trump (personally I don't like him) he was the first real alternative choice in decades.

I just think atleast Trump has a chance to do something different, Hillary wouldn't have.

I don't see him as old-school republican, and he's obviously not a democrat either. He's clearly his own man and I think the next 8 years are gonna be amazing.

Wonder how all those people who believed him when he said he was going to "drain the swamp" feel now...

Obama was the change candidate that didn't have a long history in congress. He gets labeled "establishment" by Bern victims out of propaganda. It's kind of funny how there's an anti-establishment candidate every 4 years that has a long history of being part of the establishment. At some point people have to start realizing that "anti-establishment candidate" means underdog who wants his small donations to add up.

That's part of why Trump won. People have been wanting significant change for that long, yet we never got it.

Trump was the only major party choice in the last election though other choices of change were Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. To be clear, I am not advocating anyone; I'm just differentiating candidates who will uphold the status quo and others who won't.

It was definitely a tough decision to be faced with right out of the blocks. I respect his ability to make the tough calls but will taxpayers ever get their money back? Was anything done to see that they don't repeat down the road? Or did he basically slap them on the back and say carry on fellas.?

I think you really exaggerate how "easy" this decision was to write a check -- it was not a popular decision at the time. That money had to come from Congress, remember, it isn't like Obama can write checks when he feels like it.

Totally reasonable to debate whether GM and others should have been given money, but most of that money was paid back and that industry is doing better now:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2012/sep/06/...

http://www.politifact.com/new-hampshire/statements/2012/oct/...

So I think it's valid to say his leadership prevented a domino collapse of that industry through those government loans and it didn't really cost the government much, if anything, except maybe setting a bad example that auto companies can depend on government help in the future?

This has nothing to do with why Trump was elected. The rich and powerful have been marginalizing the middle class for a long time, through reduced taxes on the wealthy and austerity measures, both here in the US and in Europe. This widening gulf between the rich and the rest of us has pissed off the middle class and they voted for Trump out of anger at the establishment that got us here.

The masses have made their voices heard on not giving a crap about surveillance. It is never high on any poll or any article I've read about the rise of Trump.

Down-vote me all you want, but this is why Trump won. The sooner people accept that, the sooner we can move forward as a nation and rebuild this whole nation for every Americans.

> He's also a grown man who's responsible for his own actions, so blaming...

There's blame to go around. The electorate is ultimately responsible for putting this tweeting extremist in the White House, and if you compare Obama's statements and actions compared to past presidents, then you could say that the "class bar" was lowered enough to where Trump was electable.

It's pointless to compare Obama to Trump because Trump is not yet a President. That job changes you, and if there is a god, it will change Trump too.

Like all previous train drivers Obama did not jump any signals or stop the train to hop out the cab and manually shift the points to get the train on the other track. He did a professional job of steering the train along without running too many people over or derailing the show. His predecessors were generally not as good at these finer details. Perhaps what Obama was best at was doing the announcements over the intercom, the passengers found him to be very funny and charming and all those good things.

Although we are all experts on trains - where they go, what the schedule is and what the seats are like, the reality of the coffee and so on, most of us are utterly clueless about what is in any of those boxes at the side of the track or how it all works.

If I was one of those people that always wanted to be train driver, and, if I had to put together a popular platform to be elected, I could make all kinds of promises, e.g. to floor it at 125 mph and put on some non-stop direct services with some buyable-in-able idea that it would all work out wonderfully. If I knew about the railway and the state of the track, or anything about those grey boxes, then I would not be issuing these cheques that cannot be cashed. Being a 'nice person' would not be enough, clueless me would not be able to take on the constraints of the infrastructure to deliver those 125mph direct trains.

It is easy to be matter of fact in a railway analogy when it comes to the problems of the system, with politics the 'deep state' is the 'problems of the system' and this is best discussed 'matter of fact' rather than as some mumbled conspiracy story.

You are not going to revolutionise transport by being a train driver even if you are the best guy for driving the train. Obama was the best guy for driving the train down the 'deep state' tracks.

She basically stated she wanted to continue Obama's legacy and... in retrospect, Obama's legacy sucks. I voted for him twice, and I almost wish I hadn't. Countries we weren't ever even at war with have children who have now grown up to fear the sound of an American drone. (As a note, I have no issue with use of drones themselves, I have issue with how we use them. Like assassinations without due process.)

On the other hand, Bin Laden is dead, we didn't start any new wars, the US left Iraq, and several regimes changed to democracy in the Middle East without the US military getting heavily involved.

Obama's Justice Department has successfully shed light on patterns of police misconduct in several major cities and has mandated reforms. Yet, Obama and the DoJ ignored a landmark report on forensic science that could've exonerated thousands of wrongfully convicted and prevented wrongful convictions in the first place.

Net Neutrality won the day under Obama, yet he has done precious little to roll back pervasive surveillance and indeed has strengthened it.

In the fullness of time we'll see if Obama's legacy is ultimately viewed as negative or positive. And a lot of that depends on individual perceptions and what issues are important to you. Not to mention that feelings about his legacy will depend a lot on the quality of presidents succeeding.

A kindergartener, compared to who runs the show in Middle East now.

> we didn't start any new wars

Only to see the age old religious ones reignite - Sunni IS, supported by disenfranchised Iraqi Sunnis vs Shia Iraqi government. That is effectively not only a religious war but also a civil one - Top IS brass is ex-Saddam's military.

> the US left Iraq

Should have finished the phrase: "The US left Iraq in a much, much worse state than when it first came."

I think you need to re-examine that one. I'd agree we didn't start any wars on the scale of Iraq, but we did continue with unnecessary and unsuccessful foreign interventions that have only served to further destabilize the Middle East (and bleeding into Europe...)

The two facets, on the surface, appear to be at such odds...

And don't forget dropping bombs everywhere. Including weddings and hospitals where Obama achieved first world occurrence of a Nobel peace prize winner bombing another.

As for dropping bombs, that ties into the drone policy and the real questions about collateral damage, how targets are selected and vetted, and the reality that in some ways targeted strikes are simply extra judicial killings.

Assessing Obama's legacy requires wading through ethical morasses and coming to understand situations that may be occluded by a lot of factors that are not visible to the public.

"Collateral damage" is dehumanizing doublespeak for the killing of civilians.

I don't want to live in any future that sees Obama's legacy in a positive light.

Don't tell a Libyan that; you might get punched in the face.

I did too, and I also almost wish I hadn't, but, TBF, it's not like the other choices were that great.

The F-35 project has somehow survived as long as it has, despite being a massive cash sink into a project that is going to produce a bad plane that doesn't win fights. And if we rely on it for our next generation air superiority, we're going to be at a disadvantage until the next generation comes around.

I don't feel like we've really had a good last eight years. It's a good thing gay marriage is now a right, but that was decided by a 5-4 conservative Supreme Court anyways... not exactly something Obama can take credit for.

The next one might be one to break the above pattern, by being so much worse!

These cautious modifiers -- "I feel", "when you dig into the details" -- wouldn't be necessary if Greenwald's work was ever taken seriously by those in the media who could boost it, but it seems they are too cowardly.