Merriam-Webster defines "document" as follows:

"to provide with factual or substantial support for statements made or a hypothesis proposed; especially : to equip with exact references to authoritative supporting information"

In this light, Mr. Wehner's piece is clearly seen as argumentation, not documentation.

The plain history is that it is the Republicans who pressured their entire caucus to refuse engagement with Obama on health care, betting that they could weaken him by preventing passage of a bill. Obama continued to engage with the Republicans through this summer's debt-ceiling debacle. In reality, we have seen a fierce Obama for a mere three months, and even then fighting only for positions that are broadly popular among the public.

Perhaps this website needs renaming to American Foreign Policy as it ignores the rest of the world who are appalled by US continued perpetual war model being exercised around the world.

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Errrr....so now the successes of this Admin are based on Bush policies...thanks for the pure comedy!

"His best hope for a positive legacy lies in foreign policy"

I think it's to early to be talking about legacies, we just got over the half way point in his first term and we are talking about legacies? Also much of his policy has detracted from Bush Jr. being unilateral I would argue and is very multilateral, much like the First Bush I would argue and less like his son. Even if it is less multilateral than it seems, there is a perception by the language that he uses that makes him seem more multilateral.

I don't know what the public thinks as a whole, and I really don't care for bipartisanship, what I do believe is that he's handled his foreign policy as well as anybody could have hoped for. Israel is to America what Serbia was for the British for much of it's history, and I've been happy to see how he's handled them. I have no patience for little nationalistic countries picking fights with their neighbors.

The author must be talking about the "strategic doctrines" which were a disaster for the Bush administration, having miraculously morphed into grudgingly admitted success, without any regard for the difference in the quality and nature of the actions they generated.
The preemptive use of force for the Iraq war, we all know how that turned out, must be a success now that the author claims the strategic principle behind it is the very same that Obama has successfully employed with the drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen against the terrorists there plotting against the US.
And the "selective unilateralism" which defined, finally, the operation against and taking out of Osama bin Laden, must have been inspired by the exactly same "selective unilateralism" of the Bush administration who failed to take him out at Tora Bora and for the next seven years. Makes sense?

I am no Republican supporter but yes definitely...And these are my personal observations and I could be wrong as well but I think close.

When Obama kept Hon Robert Gates as SecDef., he was actually keeping some of Bush defense and security policies for continuity.

Bush foreign and defense policy went faulty when he made troops go into Iraq to look for WMDs which was a false pretense. All these talk about WMDs in Iraq and any time Iraq under a deranged dictator could launch a WMD attack in America or at one of America's trusted countries in the Middle East was baseless. Saddam was all talk but lacked substance when it came to WMDs. But what Iraq might do then perhaps was attack another Middle Eastern neighbor not with WMDs but organized the attack with their Republican Guards.

The 1st Gulf War had haunted Bush Snr's Administration. The problem was some of those guys had returned to the White House and kept insisting the dangers. Bush did not had any choice but to consider the advises from his policy makers - some still had their 7th year itch from the Nixon Administration. But when WMD was a hoax, some senior officials had to bear the brunt of the lies because somebody had to answer for those questions and rightly too the pressure from the media and public were just damn damaging.

When Sec Robert Gates came into the Bush Administration his role was to re-organize, re-focus and re-strategize what the Bush Administration ought to be doing... One of the first thing they did was increase troop numbers in Iraq. Secondly, they give the troops better protection equipment - like for e.g., better vests, vehicles have better protection from IEDs, etc. Thirdly, drones are armed and bombs would target the spot once intelligence is tangible and not doing surveillance only. Another important strategy when Gates came in was soldiering ought not to be soldiering any longer but soldiering had to dual up the role as law enforcement. Meaning soldiers had to perform more intelligence gathering, get close with local communities and understand the needs of the locals rather than just coming in and arresting them or taking away their possessions.

I think for military policies when there is a change of administration its important to bear in mind that continuity creates closeness and understanding. Its difficult everyone but at least those involve in wars or conflicts, its important that changes do not come immediately, but it takes time to progress and change gradually. If the dynamics and rhythm are immediately amended then there would be chaos. The ones who take over and thought they have the right strategies can and will fail. I do not want to mention some of the obvious ones but you only have to look at the major ones in history.

I always find it amusing when I hear people discuss this versus that. The "black and white" paradigm of looking at issues is at an end. What will make any leader (whether in congress or business) a good one is the ability to be open and flexible to ideas and how to do things. Who cares if the idea is republican or democratic? Who cares if he thought one way and then changed his mind? In fact, that is a great thing because he acknowledged that his original viewpoint was not correct and fixed it. To me, this is the true sign of a good leader. I run an executive coaching firm where I deal with this same issue with my clients all the time. They become stubborn and don't want to change their opinion because they are afraid that it will make them look bad. Great leadership is about being open and flexible and I applaud Obama for swallowing his pride and doing what works, even if it came from a Republican.

Naturally, anything can be a success once the administration calls it so. But did these policies really improve the life of the American people/America's standing in the world/or anything else?

- Pre-emptive strikes: they have achieved little, while surrendering a lot. By quasi-indiscriminate killing of militants/insurgents/civilians around the world, the US has forfeited its moral high ground to stand up against anyone. Can you blame China for imprisoning people while you outright murder them? Can you blame Iran for trying to acquire a WMD when you kill thousands a year? The drone strikes did not make the US safer, US nationals are still dying overseas.

- Unilateralism: that one I consider a success, too. The US should conduct its policy alone, without delegating some of the burden and the responsibility to its vassal states.

- Democracy promotion over autocratic stability??? When did that happen? In Egypt, Obama did exactly the opposite, calling for support for Mubarak. In Libya, he intervened when there was already no stability to speak of. In Syria he declines to act to preserve the same autocratic stability.

- Great power relations based on shared values: so this is the nice word for failing to reach an accommodation with two of the world's most important countries? Obama is falling back into the same, outdated Cold-War narrative: "we have friends and we have enemies. We need friends to counter our enemies. The only values we share is our hatred of our enemies. Once we have countered the enemies, we will abandon the friends at will (exhibit A: Afghanistan)". Look at Germany. They have no enemies, just friends. Are they doing good? You bet!

Leaving aside the major point of the article (which I disagree with, but have discussed in response to other posts), I do have another question I'd like the writers of this blog to have a go at.

Many other writers in this magazine/web site and others have pointed out that there is a marked difference between the Bush administration pre-2006 and post-2006, and that most of the policies that Obama kept were of the post-2006 variety.

Do the writers of this blog agree that there is such a schism of policy within the timeline of the Bush administration itself?

If so, does this refute their argument in the sense that Bush had already repudiated his earlier policies and Obama didn't have to?

If not, how does the Obama administration represent a continuation of the Bush administration when so many of the policies that defined at least the media narrative of the early years (2000-2005) are no longer in effect?