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Doug Terry

 

FORMER COLLEAGUE SLAMS BILL O’REILLY

WalMart Minimum Wage Raised

LESLEY GORE DIES

BOB SIMON OF CBS NEWS

BRIAN WILLIAMS’ PROBLEMS

TRAVELING TO CUBA NOW

RECENT POSTS: late ‘14, early ‘15

LATE 2014 posts

The Next President: who has a chance?

Obama Not in France

Police Strike

Wash. Monument

Greg Mort, Painter

Car Hype?

Obama’s Statement

Ben’s Chili Bowl

Cuba Vacation

Cuban Exiles: No

TSA Changes

Street Protests

Rolling Stone Mess

Prosperity Now

Campus Rapes

1 World Trade Center

Who Caused Riots?

Ferguson Updates

Ferguson Live Vid

MARION BARRY DIES

Marion Barry Gone

GOP Plays Nice?

(Some) 2014 posts

SCHOOL SHOOTINGS

DEMOCRATS LOSE

ROCKET EXPLOSION

EBOLA PAGES

GONZALO CAM

Ebola Breaking Pt.

Ebola Panic!

Blood Moon

Kirk Counsins Rises

Personal Data: No!

White House Security

REDKINS NAME

Petty Fines in Ferguson, Mo

Police Stealing

Rick Perry Prays

Book Festival

SPEED CAMERAS

NATIVE AMERICANS?

PHILLY RIOTS

Hamas/Israel

Arrest Ferguson

Police Armies

Police Threat

Mistaken Police

Ferguson, Mo.

Ferguson2

LOWER WAGES

REAL ISSUE IN Missouri

Perry’s Mouth

Robin Williams

Tony Stewart

Israel/Gaza

People in Deep Debt

Ft. Hood Security

Paintball Gun

Ukraine Crash

Robert Teich/wealth

Supermoon 2013

Student Loans

Perry’s Joke

Personal Freedom

Challenge to Democracy

Murrieta Demonstrations

NASA/Arthur

WHY POOR?

CITIZEN’S WEALTH FUND

REAL AMERICA?

NTSB REPORT

Interstate Driving

OBAMA/Iraq

NO AIR TRAVEL

Iraq Plans

Obama’s Fault?

SICKNESS and poverty

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The TerryReport response:

What’s the rush to assess the Obama presidency almost two years before he is to leave office? I suspect that his supporters and liberals (not always one in the same) are trying to build him up in the wake of Republican gains in the House and Senate, which, in the case of the House, gives them the largest majority in many decades. Supporters seem to want to say that Obama has accomplished much since they realize that almost nothing Obama wants is likely to move through the Congress with Republicans firmly, and obstructively, in control.

Charles Blow, a columnist for the NY Times, was one of the latest to ring in with a premature assessment in a column today (2.19.15)

While a truly comprehensive appraisal and historical contextualization of a  presidency is the scope and scale of books more than columns, there are  things  that, from my perch and according to the peculiarities of my personal interests, stand out.

Some of these are things for which the president can, in part or in whole, take personal responsibility, but others simply happened on this watch. And yet, I believe that they will all be somewhat associated with him and his stewardship.

In an interview broadcast earlier this month, the president told CNN, “I’m proud of saving the economy.”€ť That may well be the most resounding mark of his presidency, even as people debate the quality of the recovery and his administration’s role in it.

It is nearly impossible to overstate how close we came to economic collapse in 2008 and how frightened we all were.

Now, that has turned around. The private sector has seen job growth for 59 straight months. The unemployment rate was down to 5.6 percent in December, the lowest since 2008, and as Reuters pointed out last month, new claims for unemployment benefits reached the lowest level in nearly 15 years.

President Obama sought to be a legislative president, one who was  known for the size and number of bills he got through Congress. The  Republicans, the party of No!, came up with their answer: no. The idea was to say endlessly, relentlessly that this is an ineffective president who can't lead and then deny him the opportunity to do so. Had Obama  proposed a bill recognizing Canada as a friendly, good neighbor, the Republicans would have voted it down.

The  voters, in their manipulated, gerrymandered wisdom, brought this on themselves by giving the Republicans the majority in the House in 2010,  following, of course, the spending of hundreds of millions in outside  money to make it happen. Obama and company have been out maneuvered from the start, allowing the tea party eruption to channel the anger over  the Great Recession only two months after Obama was sworn in.

Much has been made of Obama’s lack of executive experience prior to becoming president, but even more important might have been the fact that he did not have to fight his way up the way most politicians do. He went from state senator to U.S. senator to president. In the process, he might have missed out on the deviousness politicians develop and, also, not gotten the opportunity to fully test his reading of the public mood and, thus, find ways to move it where he needed it to be.

Looking back, Richard Nixon was something far different. He was the evil genius of mid-20th century American politics and he knew how to ride the wave of public sentiment better than a pro surfer could ride waves at Waimea Bay. Sometimes, he even made his own waves. Nixon shaped and led public opinion, moving it where he wanted it to be. The "silent majority", a term coined to mean people who did not protest the war in Vietnam or protest in general, was not just a description, but also expressed a fervent desire. Nixon told the public they were better people by being quiet, which is what he wanted them to be anyway. Obama disdained the  role of public leader and largely ignored the growing waves of opinion  that would rise to hit him and his presidency.

This presidency will be remembered as one when the right wing in America rose to unprecedented heights and came to conclude that they could get  away with anything, including suppressing and stealing democracy. Obama will likely be judged, overall, a successful president, but I highly doubt that he will be seen in the light suggested by Blow in the Times, who called him transformational. Wishing does not make it so. Instead, as a political force in American life, Obama is probably going to be viewed as a failure because, as the times swirled around him, he was unable or unwilling to engage on a deep enough level to turn public opinion his way. Nixon, even though he was about to be thrown out of office when he resigned and skipped town in 1974, influenced American politics for three generations. Even now, as a third Bush prepares to run for the presidency, the long tail of Nixon’s influence is still felt, since it was he who jumped started the flagging career of the first Bush to become president, George Herbert Walker Bush. Nixon made Bush I, which led to Bush II and now is seen in Bush III.

Doug Terry, 2.19.15

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