On Thursday, Jonathan Alter challenged Obama critics to narrow their arguments down.  He argued that Obama has done quite well, all things considered.  Basically, Alter asks anyone criticizing Obama to specifically identify how anyone else in Obama's position could've fared better.

On Friday, Peter Wehner answered by unwittingly proving Alter's point.  First, he shifts the scope of the argument.  Instead of answering Alter's challenge of identifying specific 'failures' of the Obama administration and outlining how he or some Republican of his choice would have not only done different but better, Wehner switched the grading scale.  Instead of evaluating Obama by Alter's standards, he implores his readers to grade Obama on Obama's standards. 

By the way, this way of grading is silly.  Suppose you have two students, the first aspiring to have all A+s, and the second wanting merely a B+ average.  Suppose the second guy gets his B+s, and the other guy gets a few A+s, but also some As and B+s mixed in, and finishes with an A- average.  Did he fail by his own standards?  Sure.  Did he do the best he could've possibly done?  Maybe not.  And maybe the other guy gave his very best, did his very best, and for that reason, was able to achieve his goal.  It's also possible the first student was capable of being an A student and set a really low bar for himself, while Mr. A+ set for himself a loftier goal than he was really capable of, knowing he'd have to really work hard.  Whatever the reason, one thing is simply not debatable:  An A- average is better than a B+ one, all other things being equal.

That's the biggest problem with the whole "You didn't deliver hope and change, and you said unemployment would stay below 8%," garbage.  The other problem with it is one Obama can really exploit in next  year's election if he plays his cards right. 

We've all heard of parents who promise their children a particular Christmas or birthday gift, and then, for some reason, they are unable to afford that gift (usually an unexpected event like a job loss or illness or large expense).  Then the kid turns to the parent and says, "You lied."  Then the parent has to explain that no, he or she did not lie.  They made a promise that they meant at the time and would have kept.  Kindergartners don't understand this; adults should.

When Obama was campaigning, unemployment was in the 5s.  It ballooned in the days leading up to the election and during the lame duck period.  By the time he took office, it was 7.8%- and seeing as he took office on January 20, and unemployment stats come out the first Friday of every month (unless the 1st falls on a Friday), unemployment was more or less 8.2% before Obama could blink.  He passed the stimulus within weeks (which is FAST, in today's Washington), and the economy almost immediately began to add jobs.  America dramatically changed in the time between Obama's campaign and his taking of office, and holding him to promises he made in the context of America '07-08 and America after '08 is childish.  Closing Guantanimo is a good idea in theory, but in reality, no one wants the people who live there; bad an option as it was, it was the least bad of all options.  Obama did not know this while campaigning, so to bind him to it by calling him a liar is childish.  Finally, Hope and Change is a slogan, not a promise.  It's vauge.  You can make what you will of it.  Some conservatives will never see hope and change until they see a new president.  Many liberals who voted for Obama are quite pleased with his work.  But binding Obama to Hope and Change is as stupid as trying to sue Mars when your M & Ms melt in your hand on a hot afternoon.  Adults get this; children don't.

Obama's best hand entering 2012 in what appears to be a sluggish economy is to make himself look like the adult in a room full of babies; to make himself appear to be the steady handed rational amid a sea of radical ideologues.  It is here that Wehner spectacularly fails in answering Alter's challenge.  He writes:

"Under Obama’s stewardship, we have lost 2.2 million jobs (and 900,000 full-time jobs in the last four months alone). He is now on track to have the worst jobs record of any president in the modern era.

The unemployment rate stands at 9.1 percent v. 7.8 percent the month Obama took office.

July marked the 30th consecutive month in which the unemployment rate was above the 8 percent level, the highest since the Great Depression.

Since May 2009 — roughly 14 weeks into the Obama administration — the unemployment rate has been above 10 percent during three months, above 9 percent during 22 months, and above 8 percent during two months.

Chronic unemployment is worse than during the Great Depression.

The youth employment rate is at the lowest level since records were first kept in 1948.

The share of the eligible population holding a job has declined to the lowest level since the early 1980s.

The housing crisis is worse than in the Great Depression. (Home values are worth roughly one-third less than they were five years ago.)

The rate of economic growth under Obama has been only slightly higher than the 1930s, the decade of the Great Depression. From the first quarter of 2010 through the first quarter of 2011, we experienced five consecutive quarters of slowing growth. America’s GDP for the second quarter of this year was a sickly 1.0 percent; in the first quarter, it was 0.4 percent.

Fiscal year 2011 will mark the third straight year with deficits in excess of $1 trillion. Prior to the Obama presidency, we had never experienced a deficit in excess of $1 trillion.

During the Obama presidency, America has increased its debt by $4 trillion.
That is to say, Obama has achieved in two-and-a-half years what it took George W. Bush two full terms in office to achieve — and Obama, when he was running for president, slammed Bush’s record as being “unpatriotic.”

America saw its credit rating downgraded for the first time in history under the Obama presidency.

Consumer confidence has plunged to the lowest level since the Carter presidency.

The number of people in the U.S. who are in poverty is on track for a record increase on President Obama’s watch, with the ranks of working-age poor approaching 1960s levels that led to the national war on poverty.

A record number of Americans now rely on the federal government’s food stamps program. More than 44.5 million Americans received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, a 12 percent increase from one year ago."

First of all, any moron can see these things, not as a list of problems, but rather as several items of evidence to one really big problem.  Second, any critique of Obama involves either blaming him for causing this, or for blaming him for failing to fix it.  Most Americans blame the Bush presidency for causing the collapse.  Thus, the only real argument is that Obama failed to fix the bad economy.  If this is Wehner's challenge, I accept.

Here are the criteria for critiquing one of Obama's- or any president's- actions or inactions:

1.  You must prove it to be an abject failure.  If you think the stimulus was a failure, you must rebut all of the economists, both liberal and conservative, who've said that without the stimulus, there is a very real chance that unemployment would be in the low teens right now; that the Dow Jones would've been trading in the 4000s for a while, that GDP would be nowhere near as high.  In other words, you have to come up with a credible economist of your own who will rebut what everyone else is saying.

2.  You have to identify an option that was on the table at the time, that would've gotten a better resuslt.  There are two prongs to this:  First, the option had to be something other politicians were considering- it can't be something we all came up with in retrospect; second, it has to be an option that not only could have produced a better outcome, but most likely would have.

3.  Last, whatever this great plan is that would've been better than what Obama did or did not do, it must've been something that would've passed Congress.  For example, liberals can pan him for not getting a bigger stimulus, but the fact is that the stimulus that passed Congress was as big as Obama was going to get.  Conservatives can pan the stimulus for not having enough tax cuts and spending too much, but, again, assuming such a plan would have worked- which most economists agree it would not have- it never would have passed.  

Liberals who critique Obama for not letting the Bush tax cuts expire cannot, then, turn around and praise him for ending DADT:  Obama got the DADT repeal and START II (and nearly got the DREAM Act) in return for extending the tax cuts, knowing full well he'd have another bite at the apple (which, in December of 2012, he may well have positioned himself to be the most important lame duck president ever (assuming of course he loses, which it's not so clear that he will)).  Conservatives who critique him on foreign policy cannot ignore Obama's assassination of Osama bin Laden, and his overthrow of two dictators, and his successful drawdowns in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

4.  If you can't accomplish 1, 2, and 3, you can't criticize Obama, because no matter how bad things ended up, it's unlikely anyone in the world be it Dwight Eisenhower or Ronald Reagan, or FDR, Harry Truman or JFK, could've done better. 

To do otherwise would be to act like that guy who sits on Sunday and watches his favorite quarterback throw 4 INTs, and then says "I could've done better than that."  I have no problem with a fan identifying one of his team's weaknesses.  I draw the line with the fans who think they know everything about playing the position, right down to the part where they say they personally know of someone who could've done better.  Or, maybe they'll say that an owner should put a certain college team out there instead of an NFL one.  Either way, it's a ridiculous argument.  The NFL is made up of guys who were the best 3 or 4 on their college team (and for most, they were THE best on their college team); the worst NFL team would beat the NCAA National Champion (or if not that champion, the best team running a pro style offense and defense) by at least 2 or three TDs.  It wouldn't be close.  The point is, the guy sitting in his recliner on Sunday talking about how some idiot off the street could do better than his team's QB is an idiot.  He fails to appreciate the talent and skill of the player he's watching. 

And people who criticize politicians for making decisions when they themselves are unable to come up with not only a better idea, but one that would've passed Congress don't appreciate our political system and its acotrs. 

A lot of conservatives have fallen in love with Rick Perry.  I don't see it lasting- for a variety of reasons.  Among the biggest is the idea that he can solve our nation's economic problems.  Most Americans blame George Bush's administration for the collapse.  All Obama really needs to do to win is tie Perry to Bush.  I understand Bush isn't president anymore, and that his name will not appear on any ballot.  I also understand that a lot of Americans compare the Recession to a hangover, and know that a hair of the dog is no remedy.  I know that a lot of Americans are tired of watching their elected officials act like children.  The GOP's biggest problem, right now, going into 2012, is that they're still thinking like children.  If they don't grow up, Obama will win decisively.  And I'm okay with that, because I can't think of how anyone else could've done much better.