If asked who was the most popular leader in his country, the
one whose economy is booming or the one whose economy is collapsing, you might
lean to the one whose economy is booming.
In fact, Russian President Vladimir Putin is getting an 80
percent or higher approval rating. U.S. President Barack Obama’s approval
rating is at a 20-month high, but not quite 50 percent.
Of course any polls or votes in a dictatorship cannot be
taken seriously, but there is no doubt Putin is Russia’s most popular man, for
the 16th year in a row.
Nobel Prize Winner Paul Krugman, in a New York Times
columnist, compares the U.S. economic recovery to a man hitting himself in the
head with a baseball bat and then stopping.
Krugman makes clear the Republican party was wielding the
bat. Thus no one should expect them to credit Obama for the highest economic
growth level in 11 years.
Americans are painfully aware of the growing disparity in
wealth in the country, and therefore there will be few parties held to honor
Obama.
Putin has banned government New Year’s eve parties, though
he has made sure there will be plenty of vodka. Who wants to kiss a woman using
beetroots for lipstick.
Although Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize for abandoning the
aggressive status of President George W. Bush, he has been anything but timid.
He has stood up to Putin, persuading allies to impose sanctions
that critics said would never work.
Obama also has used drones against widespread condemnation to
make it possible to bring U.S. soldiers home.
Hated around the world, miniature drones were popular
Christmas gifts.
Although Obama has refused to jump on board the Keystone
Pipeline bandwagon, his administration has done nothing to stop the fracking
boom that has made the nation the world’s No. 1 producer.
The result has been a world oil glut. It couldn’t have come
at a worse time for Putin, which gets two-thirds of its revenue from energy.
Gasoline prices are below $2 a gallon in some states, the
lowest in four years. The auto industry, which Obama helped save as a priority
of his first year in office, is booming.
The president has had little luck, and no support from the
other side of the aisle, in seeking contain climate change or solve the
immigration problem.
He could have intervened to slow the legalization of
marijuana and same-sex marriage, but has stuck to preelection promises to try force
the views of right-wing fundamentalists
on country where church and state are to remain separate. Only isolated pockets
of resistance to legal abortions remain.
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