Good riddance Barry. You were good, and great perhaps, on a few domestic things - but that's about it.

Let me change "good riddance" to "goodbye".

@1 & @2: Go back to your cave and rot there.

Excellent article, Tricia. I'm crying, too.

The ACA is a bit of a wash, lots more people have health care and the issue with pre-existing conditions has been improved, but it has done nothing to assuage cost, and lots of people have been left with higher priced care and soaring deductibles.

The economy is much improved, and while the job numbers look really good, most of the recovered jobs were service industry, contract, or part time, so the recovery mostly went to the 1%, and many minority households have lost ground, if anything. But he was handed a dumpster fire, so deserves some credit there.

He deported lots of people, droned lots of people, and waged a war on whistleblowers unlike any seen before it. He was helpless against Russia and their campaign against the rebels in Syria, and their actions in Ukraine and Crimea. He also presided over the biggest loss of congressional seats, statehouses, and governorships by his party in US history over eight years. So his term did not really help the democrats much.

All in all, I think we can all agree that four more years of Obama would be preferred to both Clinton and certainly to Trump, so in that sense it is hard to not call him a successful president, especially considering the intransigent, do-nothing congress he had to deal with.

8/10.

@3: Mercy! No leaving president gets a perfect score.

@5,
You have some good points. I consider Obama, a good man (like Bush before him. The verdict is still out on Trump) but a mediocre President. I didn't vote for him but he did the best he could as a liberal President. John Kass of the Chicago Tribune has a great take:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/colum…

I wish him well as I do ALL Presidents.

Full Disclosure: I voted for him 2x, and think that a key part of his legacy is raising the hope and aspirations of young African-American's everywhere. In merely being president, he's probably done more to diminish future racism than any collective group of actions he's taken to that same end. Also, he's the classiest president in living memory.

The ACA was a step forward to a single-payer healthcare system that actually, you know, works for the majority, instead of forcing people to sign up and capitulating to insurance companies and leaving high deductibles and other costs. Hopefully the ins. co.'s can be brought to heel and a better health-care payment system put in place. America is ridiculous that we don't have what all other western nations have, what with us being the, you know, richest and all.

That said, here is a learned person's additional perspective on Obama's legacy. For, in sum, he was still president of the Empire, and did horrible, venal things.

Allow me to take the occasion of Obama's emotional farewell speech to note he was a terrible, terrible president.

He was a neoliberal conservative who wanted to make gutting Social Security one of his signature achievements, but was prevented by Republicans.

He made torture acceptable by refusing to prosecute, & routinized cold-blooded murder (via drones) as means of imperial policy.

In 2008, the incoming Obama admin were the ones who insisted only bankers be bailed out & not mortgage holders, even after Bush people said ok.

I personally feel that next to HRC, Obama bears the most responsibility for the fact we now have fascists moving into the White House.

The Clintons & Obama made the Democratic Party the party of Wall Street and the professional-managerial classes.

That's their legacy.

Good Morning,
I just read this piece by Cornel West on Obama's legacy. Thought I'd share it.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre…

Quite harsh but he does have some points.