The Brookings Institution report on the Obama Administration?s First Year

The Status Report: Assessing the Obama Administration?s First Year
Source: The Brookings Institution

During the presidential transition, Brookings scholars wrote a series of policy recommendations in 12 memos to incoming President Barack Obama. In January 2010, one year into the new presidency, our experts rated the progress of the new administration on those same issues in The Status Report, a series of daily commentary and video.

Each of the items below provides an assessment of President Obama?s performance in light of recommendations made during the Presidential Transition.

When 40 is more than 60: Why Republicans always win

In the wake of Tuesday?s game-changing Republican victory in Massachusetts I?ve been inundated with expressions of bafflement from perplexed Europeans. How is it, they ask incredulously, that one year after Barack Obama came into office on a wave of popular euphoria, he has somehow come to attract the rage of the very Americans he?s been trying to help. So for my European readers, I?ll make an attempt to explain what?s going on ? particularly in light of that fact that I?ve seen some pretty inept analysis from the British media over the past two days.

Great moments in public relations

How clueless can you be? U.S. military spokesman John Redfield says he doesn’t see a problem with American troops using gun sights that have the numbers of Bible verses inscribed on them:

MAIN FOCUS: A year of Obama | 20/01/2010

Obama’s woes after Massachusetts

After last night’s beating at the hands of the people of Massachusetts, President Obama is keeping his head down.

Any public event reflecting on his first year in office would have been both unseemly and uncomfortable. So there wasn’t one.

Obama’s Foreign Policy: The Right Grand Strategy