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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)
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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.
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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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