Obama Gets No Credit for Avoiding Disasters

Obama's presidency has largely been about averting disasters and responding to disasters. While that doesn't win Obama much political clout, as this article concludes, we need a level-headed, pragmatic, smart, thoughtful and conscious president who can manage disasters without making them worse. For every disaster I think of John McCain and how he might have handled it. Then I think of Newt. Then Michele Bachmann. Then Mitt. Then Sarah Palin. Then... well, you get the idea.

The New Republic recently asked an intriguing question about the U.S. intervention in Libya: Why isn't Obama getting credit for preventing an atrocity? The answer is obvious when you think about it: because he prevented the atrocity. It's hard to get credit for avoiding a disaster when it's impossible to prove the disaster would have happened without you. Social scientists call this the counterfactual problem. There's no double-blind study to show what would happen in an alternative Libya where the U.S. didn't intervene. If you want credit for stopping a disaster, you have to wait until the disaster is already under way to act, like President Clinton did in Bosnia. Read more at Time