When Bill Clinton became President in 1993 the outgoing President George Bush announced to the media that he was adopting what might be termed the one year rule. Bush stated that as a former President he would follow a self imposed ban on any public comments regarding President Clinton for the first year of his administration.
While unfortunately this example was not repeated by Bill Clinton in 2001 with regard to his successor I do think it is a good policy to follow. The ability of a President to impact things takes time to filter through the system. What happens during the first year is largely the result of the policies of the former leader.
Since I have not yet been given the privilege of serving as President I cannot adopt the full range of this rule (IE to say nothing about Obama during 2009). To do so would largely shut me down as a blogger and while I am sure some of you out there are thinking what a good idea that would be, I am going to continue my little rantings here at TMV.
What I will do however is follow the basic premise that during year one there is not a lot Obama can do to impact long range events such as the overall condition of the economy or the success of various foreign policy agendas.
I will comment on his policies and proposals and will offer my views as to whether they are good or bad programs, if they are apt to have positive or negative effects. If he or a member of his adminstration are accused of some sort of wrongdoing then of course I will make observations on that.
But for the duration of 2009 I will give him a pass in terms of actual long term impact on things. I hope that my fellow bloggers will follow this example, and I hope that future bloggers will do so regardless of who the President is.