Compared to the recent record, Barack Obama’s presidency has been a successful one thus far

With the recent government shutdown and his expansion of the program of drone strikes in the Middle East, President Barack Obama has faced much criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike. John Dumbrell assesses the President’s record since he was first elected in 2008. He argues that, while evaluating presidential success is often not easy, Obama’s has a comparatively accomplished record in domestic policy via his health care and other reforms, and in the foreign policy arena, he has supplied America with a direction of ‘low-risk internationalism’, appropriate to lean economic times.