How O will be remembered

The Obama Years

This piece was published today on the web and the comments are closed already at 1505 hrs EDT.

Seems odd.

Anyway, I just wanted to say I think O will be remembered rightly as one of the greatest and most historically effective progressive presidents, behind FDR and Johnson.

His impact on race politics has been relatively minor (compared to LBJ, say) but probably good on the whole.

His impact on recovery from the crash of 2008 was very positive (Charles Blow reports he says he's proud of "saving the economy") and his impact on many other class issues, especially Obamacare, has been excellent.

Just as millions of Americans, including millions too stupid to know who their friends are, have lived longer and better lives because of FDR and LBJ, millions will because of Barack Hussein Obama II.

(Why was he never known as BHO?)

Of course, today's progressivism is not my grandfather's progressivism (Wilson sent him to France in 1917 with Blackjack Pershing) nor even mine, so today's progressives judge these matters a little differently.

For the new progressives who put such issues ahead of those of class, pride of place goes to his successes in advancing gay rights and next in line comes his packing the federal judiciary with nominees who were much more often women than in the past, and minorities in numbers far out of proportion to their percentage of the population.

Maybe the American Political Science Association only places him 18th, but I rate him much higher.