Forbes Magazine asks, "Could Obama be America's best President?" Ooh, this is going to piss off a lot of people on the Right!

Here is a sampling form the article courtesy of Forbes:

Interview with Bob Deitrick, co-Author “Bulls, Bears and the Ballot Box” (BBBB): 

Q- Bob, how much credit should Americans give President Obama for today’s improved equity values? 

BBBB – Our research reviewed American economic performance since President Roosevelt installed the first Federal Reserve Board Chairman – Republican Marriner Eccles. We observed that even though there are multiple impacts on the economy, it was clear that policy decisions within each administration, from FDR forward, made a clear difference on performance. And relatively quickly. 

Presidents universally take credit when the economy does well (such as Reagan,) and choose to blame other factors when the economy does poorly (such as Carter.) But there was a clear pattern, and link, between policy and financial market performance. 

Although we hear almost no one in the Obama administration taking credit for record index highs, they should. Because the President deserves attention for how well this economy has done during his leadership. 

Q- To which President would you compare Obama’s economic performance? 

BBBB- By all measures, President Obama has outperformed every modern President. The easiest comparison would be to President Reagan, who’s economic performance was superb. 

Reagan had the enormous benefit of two major factors: 

1. a significantly better economy than Obama inherited, even if afflicted by inflation 
2. and his two terms coincided with the highest performing demographic years of the Baby Boomer generation. 

Today’s demographics have shifted dramatically. The country is much older, with fewer young people supporting a much larger near-retirement age group. This inherent demographic fact makes creating economic growth monumentally harder than it was 30 years ago. 

Q- Bob, President’s Obama detractors liken the Affordable Care Act (i.e. Obamacare) to an Armageddon on business, sure to kill economic growth and plunge the country back into recession. Do you agree? 

BBBB- To the contrary, ACA levels the playing field and will be good for economic growth. Where previously only large corporations could afford employee health care plans, in the future far more employees will have far more equitable coverage. Further, today employees frequently are unable to leave a company to start a new business because they would lose health care, which in the future will not be true. 

One leading indicator of the benefits of ACA might be the performance of healthcare and biotech stocks, which are up 20-30% and leaders in the current market rally.

So did you get that? President Obama has out performed all previous Presidents by ANY measure and his Obamacare is GOOD for economic growth despite hysterical ravings by the Right Wing to the contrary.

Now Forbes magazine is not exactly known as being Obama cheerleaders, so this article is significant coming from them. (I can already hear their phones ringing off the hook as conservatives call to cancel their subscriptions.  Oh well, most of them are dying off anyway.)

Now if that did not make you gain a little more respect for the President perhaps this article from his former speechwriter will accomplish that:  

The handwringers and bed wetters in the D.C. punditocracy should know that Barack Obama will never be on their timeline. He does not value being first over being right. He will not spend his presidency chasing news cycles. He will not shake up his White House staff just because of some offhand advice offered to Politico by a longtime Washingtonian or a nameless Democrat who’s desperately trying to stay relevant. And if that means Dana Milbank thinks he’s too passive; if it means that Jim VandeHei will keep calling him arrogant and petulant; if it means that Chris Matthews will whine about him not enjoying the presidency, then so be it. He’ll live. 

Barack Obama understands his own limitations and the limitations of his office. He has made mistakes and he will likely make more. But this is a president who has seen the nation through many serious and consequential crises, and he has done so without losing the core of who he is or why he ran for this job in the first place. In the end, those are the qualities that will serve him well—the qualities that will serve us well—in the months and years ahead.

So, according to these two articles, President Obama has done an extremely impressive job thus far, and there is every indication he will continue to do so in the future.

Sounds good to me.