Barack's Chicken Salad

In a recent conversation with a friend of mine, Chris Celi, we were talking about the travelling clown car that is the GOP presidential primary race and then about the eventual candidate's competition, Barack Obama.  In a PG-13 reference, I claimed that Obama was expected to come into office and, "make chicken salad out of chicken (excrement)."  Chris' response was simple, yet very intuitive: "that's some chicken salad."

And he's right.  I have been critical of the president for some time now, and as I watch the primaries roll along, and look at Obama's presidency in retrospect, perhaps I've been too hard on the guy.  He truly was given a terrible economic situation, two wars that we arguably should not be involved in, and an angry populace.  Now, almost three years into his presidency, we are seeing slight economic growth despite an ailing situation across the Atlantic Ocean, a shrinking unemployment gap, and a concrete exit strategy for our brave troops in the Middle East.  Sounds pretty damn good to me.

It makes me think that maybe our government's problems are not coming from the Oval Office, although the buck does stop there.  Our Congress is inactive - so much so that Barney Frank delivered a nice punch to the gut to his colleagues upon announcing his retirement.  The Supercommittee assigned to balancing the budget embarrassed themselves so badly that Congress has worked towards a whopping 9% approval rating from the American public.  The nation's debt is increasing, and there is no end in sight because nothing is agreed upon between Republicans and Democrats.

So although Obama's reelection hopes ride almost entirely on the economy, as POLITICO claims in the linked article above, and Americans are not entirely happy with his time in office, maybe he still is the best candidate in 2012.  I'm not sure yet, a lot depends on who falls out of the GOP clown car last and winds up with the nomination.  But seriously, the guy finally found Bin Laden, he has curbed torturous practices in military prisons such as Guanatanamo Bay, and he's BRINGING TROOPS HOME.  All this, along with some social reforms that benefit the nation as well.  So despite being a little too 'anti-business' as my friend Chris has claimed, and his questionable Obamacare plan still may be worked into our nation's economy pending Supreme Court decisions, the president has kept us afloat and maybe four more years of Obama is the best option for Americans.

Not bad for a guy who wasn't even born here...