Free Republic

During an interview with CBS's Charlie Rose that aired on Monday morning, President Obama said his proudest achievement over the past three and a half years is stabilizing the economy, not his signature health care reform law. “My proudest achievement is actually stabilizing the economy to avert a great depression, because if I don’t do that nothing else matters,” Obama said. “And the central question becomes building on what we've done. Where do we go from here?” ....

EXCLUSIVE MONDAY PREVIEW | OPINION Panic sets in at the White House By John E. Sununu | JUNE 18, 2012 KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERS President Obama said, “the private sector is doing fine.” It’s been a tough couple of weeks for President Obama, one of those stretches where everything seems to go south at once. The economy is soft, his poll numbers are down, and Europe has the markets on edge; Romney is even beating him in the money race. What was once hailed as personal confidence — or condemned as arrogance — is long gone. Panic has set in, and it’s...

Now he's the one who needs hope and change. Barack Obama's unsettled presidency is presently tied to four interconnected projects: (A) bringing back the economy; (B) raising the standard of living of the non-wealthy; (C) fulfilling his remaining campaign promises; and, (D) getting re-elected. The final three all depend primarily on the first, and making the economy grow is to some degree out of the President's control. Obama's political enemies think he is on track to achieve none of the four, and are anticipating an overthrow in 2012. But by closing 2010 with the kind of bipartisan compromise that was...