Apologies of this has been asked before, I checked the FAQ and did a search and didn't find anything exactly matching what I'm asking.
Washington is often seen as one of our greatest and most respected presidents, but if you viewed him through the same eyes of today that President Obama is viewed through, what would be the biggest criticisms of his administration? Were there any campaign promises he failed to deliver on? Did he or anyone in his cabinet mishandle any situations?
Keep in mind, I'm not asking for dirt on Washington. Rather I'm asking what his presidency would look like to someone viewing it at the time, and not as history.
While I am certainly no expert on the subject of popular opinion on Washington's presidency, I do know that signing the 1795 Jay Treaty with Great Britain earned him some criticism in the press. One critic wrote that he was "deeply impressed with the awful situation to which the American people are brought by the treaty now under your [Washington's] consideration," in Greenleaf's New York Journal and Patriotic Register on September 5th 1795. Most of the article is devoted to criticizing Jay and Great Britain, however, and remains quite deferential to Washington despite its very personal introduction. Perhaps it is also significant that the author refers to Washington as "Citizen George Washington, President of the United States of America [my emphasis]." Much of the vitriol over the Treaty that I have come across in the press has been focused more on its other architects (such as Jay and Hamilton), but at the end of the day, the Treaty was signed by Washington. It is also worth noting that I found these articles incidentally through research on a another topic, so there is certainly much more press reaction to the Treaty that has escaped me. If you have access to the America's Historical Newspapers database through a library or university account, it is a wonderful way to discover how citizens were reacting to and interpreting the big issues of their day.
As a side note, I would take care not to judge either Washington's presidency or its popular impression by the standards of today's politics. I do not believe Washington ever made "campaign promises," mostly because political campaigns, at least those led by the candidate themselves, did not exist until well into the 19th century. Campaigning was even considered to be demeaning to the candidate prior to this shift. Nevertheless, Washington was already popular enough in the early Republic that he didn't even have an opponent in the election. The decision to elect him was unanimous. Washington's election was the epitome of the early Republican ideal that candidates for public office should not choose their office, but be chosen for their office.