Minus 26

This is pretty dead-on, generally speaking. In sum, Obama's first year scores a minus 26 in terms of restoring the rule of law, according to the ACLU. They reached that score after adding up all the decisions Obama has made and whether those were positive (Plus 1, or Plus .5) or negative (Minus 1, or Minus .5) with respect to that issue, and then added up the total. That means Obama made at least 26 more lawless, non-transparent, or torture-protecting decisions than not.

This number is especially noteworthy considering how oeven-handed and, really, forgiving the ACLU's analysis is. In reading the report I found myself flabbergasted that they only gave out Minus .5s for some decisions, and actually gave pluses for very insignificant things. For example, they gave Plus 1 for things entitled "Guantanamo" and "Future Detainee Policy." Of course nothing has really changed on these fronts, but they gave him credit for setting (missed) goals and setting up commissions or whatever to examine these issues. They also gave out a Plus .5 for the actions entitled "Administration brings charges against ‘enemy combatant’; refuses to give up the power to hold people indefinitely." I'm not sure what in there is supposed to be a positive thing, especially since Obama has now claimed the power of indefinite detention, but here we see that this scorecard is likely just a direct comparison to the Bush Administration. So I guess a lack of blatant disregard for the law altogether gets you a pat on the head.

Which brings us full circle to the idea of just how fucking awful a job you have to do to get a score of Minus 26, when you are being compared to 8 years of Fuck-up Magee, the most lawless President in American History. Did I mention how much I agree with this report?