Newsweek‘s Fareed Zakaria is giving Obama high marks on his first 100 days in office in the magazine’s May 4 issue. What’s interesting, though, is when Zakaria explains why. He writesthat while the country is more liberal than its been in 20 years, he(predictably enough) zeroes in on Obama’s geniusin charting a “middle course”: no changes to NAFTA, noserious challenge to corporate power (“the old Democratic hostility to big business doesn’t resonate so strongly anymore”), no real challenge to Wall Street (“he has steered a careful middle course on the bank bailouts”) and noaccountability for Bush-era torture (“he does not want to criminalize a policy disagreement”) . It’s just the sort of thing pundits like Zakaria love to see.
What is the overall critique here?
Only someone like Zakaria *could* give him “high marks”, right?
No one hoping for an end to wars for profit, universal health care or the upholding of human rights here and abroad would be so moved, would they?