OUR REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT:

But with only 17 months remaining in his term, Obama has yet to achieve any real policy victories in Africa. And as he has struggled to balance a full plate of crises in other parts of the world, the accomplishments of the nation's first African-American president appear noticeably thinner than those of his predecessor, former President George W. Bush. [...]

Cameron Hudson, who served as director for African affairs on the staff of the National Security Council from 2005-2009 under the Bush and Obama administrations, says their difference in Africa policies is that Bush appeared to have a more solid strategy in how to approach the continent and what he wanted to accomplish there.

"When Bush came into office, there were civil wars going on in Sudan, Congo, Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone. And by the end of his first term, all those civil wars were over," Hudson says. "There was, I think, a very deliberate effort in the first term of the Bush administration to end those civil wars, and by ending those civil wars, enabling him in the second term to launch a very aggressive development program."

When it comes to Obama, "I would question just generally what his vision for the continent was," Hudson says.

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