One has to wonder if this is a good time or a bad time to be the President of the United States.

On the plus side, besides being a position of fantastic respect, power and prestige, you can hardly do worse than the perception of the previous administration.  Unless the USA shuts down the stock market or Mexico invades and takes back the Alamo, just about any decision will, in the short term, be viewed as better than the decision that preceeded it.

On the negative side, the economy is in trouble, loans and mortages need years of fixing, the USA’s reputation around the world has gone from innovation to insult comic and any transition has a slow period of adjustment at the beginning.

Up first, the US needs to improve it’s world-wide image so expect the “Joe Biden 74 country world goodwill tour” to start around Valentine’s Day. Russia?  I’m looking at you.

After that Congress will probably move to improve the poverty level by raising the minimum wage which will have either a good or bad effect on small business and I don’t know which. 

Also, freezing housing closures for 3 months won’t bail us out of the logjam that is a ton of people who signed up for loans they couldn’t afford after we made a bad system that allowed it to happen.  Just cos the gov’t held up the noose and invited folks to stick their heads into it doesn’t mean either side is without blame.

As for the war – the battle has not been in Iraq, not should it have been, for several years.  Find where we need to go, do what we need to do, then do it.  And, for variety, actually listen to the field officers who tell us how to handle the problem. The sooner the troops vacate that country, the better.

It could be a great time to be Potus – if everything works you are hailed as the greatest thing since sliced bread (mmm, bread) but if nothing works you take the blame even if the mess was a hand-me-down from your undisciplined older brother.