Daily Kos is a progressive liberal blog dedicated to elect Democrats. It is to be expected that this community is passionate about President Obama. Below the fold are top ten reasons why everyone in this community should work tiredlessly to reelect President Obama.
(10) President Obama was awarded the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize in October, 2009 "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people."
(9) President Obama knows how to cooperate with the Republicans. There were 257 democratic representatives and 59 democratic senators in the 2008 congress. After 2010 midterm election, these numbers were reduced to 193 and 53 respectively. Despite this and Republicans' destructionist tactics, President Obama was able to extend the Patriot Act and pass the NDAA with overwhelming bipartisan support from the congress.
(8) America, under the leadership of President Obama, is moving in the right direction. According to a Gallup poll:
Americans enter the new year with considerably more optimism than pessimism about what it may bring: 58% say 2011 will be better than 2010, 20% say 2011 will be worse, and 21% say it will be the same.
(7) President Obama's economic policy works. U.S. unemployment rate was 7.8 in 01/2009 after the disastrous Bush presidency. It was 10.1 in 10/2009, 9.8 in 11/2010, and has since dropped to 8.6 in 11/2011.
(6) President Obama wins the Afghan war. President Obama kept a campaign promise and ordered troop surge in Afghanistan. According to the Los Angelos Times:
The flexing of that military muscle led to some of the most triumphal rhetoric in years about the Afghanistan war effort. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, visiting the country in mid-December, told American troops that they were "winning this very tough conflict."
(5) President Obama is a friend of Israel. According to the New York Times' Helene Cooper:
In a speech Friday to the convention of the Union for Reform Judaism, Mr. Obama sought to counter Republican criticism that he had been more supportive of the Palestinian cause than Israel by outlining how he had fought for Israeli interests over the last three years, providing unprecedented military and security aid and defending Israel on the world stage. He said that the United States hadn’t eliminated any options to combat Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons, and promised to keep international pressure meant to rein in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
(4) President Obama will go to war with Iran to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapon. According to Jeffrey Goldberg, writing for the Bloomberg:
[President Barack Obama] has said, repeatedly, that an Iran with nuclear weapons is unacceptable to the U.S. Many Israelis, and many Americans, think Obama is soft on such matters. But I believe, based on interviews inside and outside the White House, that he would consider using force -- missile strikes, mainly -- to stop the Iranians from crossing the nuclear threshold.
(3) President Obama makes U.S. secure. On December 31, while vacationing in Hawaii, President Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Professsor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University Law School wrote in the Guardian:
President Barack Obama rang in the New Year by signing the NDAA law with its provision allowing him to indefinitely detain citizens. It was a symbolic moment, to say the least. With Americans distracted with drinking and celebrating, Obama signed one of the greatest rollbacks of civil liberties in the history of our country … and citizens partied in unwitting bliss into the New Year.
Ironically, in addition to breaking his promise not to sign the law, Obama broke his promise on signing statements and attached a statement that he really does not want to detain citizens indefinitely (see the text of the statement here).
Obama insisted that he signed the bill simply to keep funding for the troops. It was a continuation of the dishonest treatment of the issue by the White House since the law first came to light. As discussed earlier, the White House told citizens that the president would not sign the NDAA because of the provision. That spin ended after sponsor Senator Carl Levin (Democrat, Michigan) went to the floor and disclosed that it was the White House and insisted that there be no exception for citizens in the indefinite detention provision.
(2) President Obama is tough on terrorists. According to the Washington Post:
Other commanders in chief have presided over wars with far higher casualty counts. But no president has ever relied so extensively on the secret killing of individuals to advance the nation’s security goals.
The rapid expansion of the drone program has blurred long-standing boundaries between the CIA and the military. Lethal operations are increasingly assembled a la carte, piecing together personnel and equipment in ways that allow the White House to toggle between separate legal authorities that govern the use of lethal force.
In Yemen, for instance, the CIA and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command pursue the same adversary with nearly identical aircraft. But they alternate taking the lead on strikes to exploit their separate authorities, and they maintain separate kill lists that overlap but don’t match. CIA and military strikes this fall killed three U.S. citizens, two of whom were suspected al-Qaeda operatives.
(1) President Obama is tough on illegal immigrants. There have been record-setting deportations of illegal immigrants under President Obama.
Since 2009, the annual average number of deportations has approached 400,000, according to the Department of Homeland Security. That’s double the annual average during President George W. Bush’s first term and 30 percent higher than the average when he left office.
Meanwhile, the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States has hit a decade low because of the down economy and stepped-up enforcement efforts.
This list could easily go on and on. Please feel free to add yours in the comments. (The "professional left" who reflexively criticize President Obama "ought to be drug tested", as former White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs once suggested.)