Perhaps it’s a testament to how
badly their successors have bungled things, but the past few American
presidents have enjoyed some serious image upgrades after leaving office.
Richard Nixon, the jowly Watergate-tainted hippy hater, was later recognized by
no less than Noam Chomsky as “the last liberal president.” Ronald Reagan went
from being denounced by opponents as the Great Prevaricator and the Teflon President
to someone whom Democrats berate Republicans for not being more like. Bill
Clinton, once viewed with scorn as a cancer upon the White House, was later
praised by the likes of conservative media icons David Horowitz (Front Page Magazine) and Christopher
Ruddy (NewsMax) for his centrist
domestic and economic policies. Even George W. Bush, derided as everything from
an ineloquent buffoon to a war criminal, is now being credited by former
critics for his compassionate approach to immigration.
It
is highly likely that Barack Obama will enjoy a similar reappraisal after
leaving office. Of course, there are those who believe that no such reappraisal
is necessary and that Obama has acquitted himself well during his time in the
White House, but the rest of us, troubled by everything from drone strike
assassinations to the botched implementation of the Affordable Care Act and the
swirl of lies that preceded it to multiple attempts at executive overreach and
end-runs around Congress, are going to take some convincing.
Still, it would
take either a profoundly unimaginative mind or a troubling degree of irrational
rage not to envision Obama’s eventual legacy in a better light, no matter how
grim one’s present perception. With that in mind, here are the five things that
we will likely come to appreciate about our 44th president.
He was temperamentally well-suited for the
office.
Even before he
took office, Obama had garnered a well-deserved reputation as a compelling and
inspirational speaker. This is a point that his critics often concede, usually
with a disclaimer that his style masks a lack of substance, that he should not
be trusted precisely because he can nail a speech. However, faulting a
president for talking a good game is nothing if not myopic. After all, Reagan’s
ability to inspire and uplift through speech craft was at the crux of his
appeal. He did not single-handedly fix America’s economy or win the Cold War,
but he made many Americans believe these things were possible. Similarly,
regardless of its substance, “Yes We Can” worked to energize the electorate and
invite hope.
Like his ability
to speechify, Obama’s calm affability is both widely noted and curiously polarizing:
the unflappability of “No Drama” Obama is sometimes taken for apathetic detachment,
the sign of one too aloof and disengaged to lead. This too is an oddly
selective criticism, especially when considering the antithesis. Lyndon Johnson
threatened, cajoled, intimidated (and, reportedly, exposed himself to) others
to get things done, but he left office highly unpopular, and the Democratic
coalition that he tried to keep together through force of personality
splintered and collapsed by 1968. Obama’s comparatively easygoing nature has not
only allowed him to avoid inspiring personal
(political is another matter) acrimony a la the temperamentally unsuited
Johnson and Nixon but has enabled him to win the respect of political
adversaries like arch-conservative former Sen. Tom Coburn. It is reasonable to
demand that a president do more than talk and play nice, but thirst for the
former should not blind us to the value of the latter.
He was the least crooked president in more than
twenty years
Obama’s presidency
has been far from scandal-free. As mentioned previously, he lied to the
American people about the Affordable Care Act, and the conduct of those in his
administration was considerably worse. During his presidency, the IRS also inappropriately
targeted conservative groups, the fallout from the ATF’s “gunwalking”
operations resulted in an (admittedly partisan) contempt charge for
then-Attorney General Eric Holder, and then-Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s
now-infamous mishandling of e-mails reeks of incompetence if not also impropriety.
Thanks to his
predecessors lowering the ethical bar, however, the scandals of Obama pale in
comparison to the scandals of those who occupied the Oval Office before him. Mishandled
e-mails and the inappropriate use of an executive branch entity (the Justice
Department instead of the IRS) to target political opponents were both featured
during George W. Bush’s presidency as well, and his administration added manipulation
of intelligence and an appalling defense of torture to the mix. When Bill
Clinton wasn’t busy perjuring himself regarding his affair with a White House
intern, his administration engaged in dubious fundraising and the pardoning of
campaign contributors. Go back further and you’ll find administrations that
sold weapons to America’s enemies (Reagan), partook in illegal wiretapping and
breaking and entering (Nixon), and were the fruits of vote fraud and organized
crime “assistance” (Kennedy). That
Obama, a product of notoriously corrupt Chicago, would preside over an
administration that was, relatively speaker, cleaner than those of several of
his predecessors is quasi-miraculous. That it will likely be cleaner than that
of his successor is depressing.
He got bin Ladin
It is patently preposterous
to personally credit Obama with the successful takedown of Osama bin Laden, but
doing so would be in keeping with a longstanding tradition of recognizing
presidents for things in which they had no direct hand. Thus, if we are to
acknowledge that SEAL Team Six deserves the plaudits for doing in the erstwhile
al Qaeda leader, then we must also acknowledge that Bush had relatively little
to do with toppling Saddam Hussein (“Mission Accomplished” iconography to the
contrary), and that Reagan did not bring the Soviet Union to its knees. Inasmuch
as we are going to continue to reward presidents for the victories that happened
to occur on their watch, however, Obama deserves credit here.
He’s leaving us with a better economy than what
he inherited
In 2009, a Time magazine cover depicted a
fedora-wearing Obama cruising in a 1930s roadster, a classic Franklin Delano
Roosevelt pose. For Obama’s supporters and opponents alike, the parallels are
obvious. Obamaphiles hoped that the 44th president would mimic the
32nd president by taking bold executive action upon entering office
while Obama skeptics dreaded the same. Like Obama, FDR inherited a bleak economic
situation. His response, the New Deal, ruffled a lot of feathers, but it did
not actually end the Great Depression. Similarly, within his first 100 days in
office, Obama championed and signed a stimulus act that cost $831 billion yet
did not have the short-term impact on unemployment that was promised.
However, while
Obama was not the economic savoir that some supporters hoped for, he was also
not the radical socialist despot that his detractors made him out to be. While
it may take years for the impact of the Affordable Care Act to be fully
realized and while the debt to GDP ratio continues to grow at an alarming rate,
several other indicators show an economy that is healthier now than it was
eight years ago. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment
rate is down from 7.8 percent in January 2009 to about 5 percent now. According
to the Office of Management and Budget, federal spending deficits, which jumped
from $458 million in 2008 to $1.4 trillion in 2009 in the thick of the
recession, are back down to an estimated $615 million, still depressingly high
but nevertheless trending in the right direction.
Of course, the
earlier point about crediting presidents with things not of their making still holds
– presidents don’t “run” the economy and cannot be expected to singlehandedly
“fix” it – but again, precedent shows that legacy is largely a product of
happenstance. In 1980, Reagan famously asked voters if they were better off
than they were four years ago. The answer, for many, was no. That their
discontent was arguably a product of a global energy crisis that had its roots
in the Middle East did nothing to absolve incumbent Jimmy Carter of his
perceived failings. Were we to put that question to voters today, the answer
for many would be yes: unemployment is down, and gas is cheaper. How much of
that is actually the president’s doing is as immaterial now as it was 36 years
ago.
He brought U.S.-Cuba relations into the 21st
century
One area where
Obama did have a more active hand was in the Cuban Thaw: a series of diplomatic
maneuvers that included a relaxation of travel restrictions and the
normalization of relations between the two countries. Critics were quick to
blast this move as appeasement of a dictatorial regime. However, this ignores
the fact that the sanctions that were in place for more than half a century not
only failed to topple said regime but actively aided it as a propaganda tool.
As Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) noted, allowing Americans to travel abroad is an
expression of freedom for Americans, easing restrictions on trade and
remittances has improved life for Cubans, and since the thaw began, the island’s
private sector has grown considerably. Obama may have failed in his quest to
close the Guantanamo Bay prison, but he deserves credit for breaking with
outmoded Cold War thinking and pursuing positive change that benefits both
countries.
From
the time he emerged on the national political scene, Obama has been subject to
a slew of ridiculously conspiratorial innuendos and smears. He has been
denounced as everything from a Kenyan-born secret Muslim to an anti-white
racist to faith-hating atheist, and his administration has been accused of
conspiring to confiscate guns from citizens and imprison them in FEMA-run
concentration camps. These ludicrous assertions detract from the Obama
administration’s very real failings: a president willing to overstep the boundaries
of his office when it suited him, an executive branch that has appeared at
various times incompetent or dishonest, and a signature healthcare law that is
looking worse every day.
Despite
these shortcomings, Obama is likely to be missed in some ways, even by those
who once held him and his presidency in the lowest esteem. We’ve already seen
this from rightwing media star Glenn Beck, who recently lamented his “freaking
out” over the Obama years. As America braces itself for the onset of Donald
Trump - he of the lawsuit-addled business empire, grossly misogynistic personal
conduct, penchant for crass remarks, and disregard for anything other than his
own authority - others will likely reach similar reappraisals. The dust of
history is yet unsettled, but as an orange storm looms, it is not hard to see what
form that dust may eventually take.
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