Obama Failure Thread Part VII (The Lame Duck Years)

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/01/53-historians-on-obamas-legacy.html

53 historians try to predict Obama's legacy.

 

#Benghazi

 

This makes me smile:

“It’s a fool’s errand you’re involved in,” warned Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon Wood when approached recently by this magazine to predict Barack Obama’s historical legacy. “We live in a fog, and historians decades from now will tell their society what was happening in 2014. But we don’t know the future. No one in 1952, for example, could have predicted the reputation of Truman a half-century or so later.”

Just this past weekend, I was telling my 12 year old that I suspect that Obama will be viewed very much like Truman as the years pass.

 

By Truman's reputation, does Wood mean "Give him hell, Harry?" Because surely 99% of Americans either know zero about Truman, or have a vague warm & fuzzy sense of a straight talking little guy. I mean, I wouldn't say he has any true reputation at all.

 

I think he is simply pointing out that Truman left office as a very unpopular figure and 50 years on he has a very high approval rating and is widely considered to have been a good president, even if that wide consideration is not based on substance.

 

Ah, got it. Nobody now remembers why Truman had a high disapproval rating. Makes sense. I certainly do not. Maybe Dem fatigue after the party had 20 years of the Presidency? Maybe Korea? The economy was booming, that's for sure.

 

this

 

I've already made up my mind on how historians will look at Obama. They'll say he was competent enough but boooo-ring. Which is probably exactly what the country needed after the last guy.

It's also remarkable that he's made it this far without any really notable political or corruption scandals. That's highly unusual for a two-term president. (Although I remember some Republicant saying a couple of years ago that he was the most corrupt president ever.)

 

I'll bet I could find a few saying it a couple minutes ago without too much searching. But in general they seem to go back and forth between Obama being a dastardly mastermind and a total incompetent. At least with the last presidency those roles were split between two people.

 

One word Benghazi...

 

Uh-huh. Bengazi. We're talking historians here, not ranting nutcases on Fox News.

It's interesting to see the gradual whittling away of the prisoner numbers at Guantanamo. I assume that Obama intends to try and strip it of prisoners by the end of his term. In a sense, it's the perfect metaphor for his presidency. In the end, he may achieve one of his stated goals, but he'll get no credit for it because (1) it didn't happen fast or decisively enough for the left and (2) the action is presented by the right as being both destructive for the country and and yet another example of presidential overreach. Lose/lose. Even if, technically or even obviously, it's a win. Same with healthcare. The bounce-back of an economy that was in a shambles in Jan. 2009. The (continued) wind-down of two inherited wars (and, of course, he opposed the Iraq invasion).

My guess (and feel free to check back with me in 50 years to see if I'm right) is that Obama will be seen as an important president, for whom a number of his most valued projects will prove to have a profound effect on the country. Primarily, I mean healthcare, but I suppose we need to wait and see what our enlightened Supreme Court decides about that. Assuming the ACA and its current subsidy structure stand, I have to think that this single achievement will give Obama some lasting status among the Michael Beschlosses of the world. I have a harder time seeing people look back at Obama as someone they'll miss or like. He just never had the kind of personality - or political skills - to make that seem likely.

Finally, a lot depends on what happens in the next 5-10 years. I mean, presidents are seen in context. Does Hillary Clinton get elected president? Does she get re-elected? Does she - unlike Obama - have a chance to upend the current 5-4 split in the Supreme Court and, thereby, make Democratic initiatives a lot more safe and secure if passed than is/was the case under a Scalia/Kennedy/Thomas/Alito court?

 

I would guess that on domestic issues he will be seen as fairly progressive, but hamstrung by the ferocious backlash against a black man being elected president. Besides health care, he has been mostly good on the environment and civil rights. On foreign policy, that all depends on how things turn out over the next 50 years, so I can't begin to predict.

 

Agreed, though I assume that Cuba gets him in the history books, regardless. Looking back, I can't imagine that most people will see this as a bad move. Rather, they'll wonder why the hell it took so long to occur.

 

So you are saying there is hope for Bush 2?

 

Fire up everybody.

Americans can also bring home up to $100 in alcohol and tobacco from Cuba, meaning the ban on Cuban cigars is officially over.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/15/us-cuba-travel-rules_n_6478172.html

 

Holy shit, this is a hell of a whitewash party you guys got going here.

 

Yeah, I'm not sure where that comes from, at least in terms of Patriot Act-y kinds of things. A huge disappointment for me. That said, where would you put marriage equality, which has obviously exploded into the mainstream during his presidency?

 

He led from WAY behind on that one. Pretending he is even remotely responsible for it in any way is a total fiction. He had to yield to society and the changing culture.

 

But at least he did that much, and was willing to change his mind on the issue. He still ain't there on the drug war.

 

Sorry, you don't get credit for simply being present when all around you changes.

 

I get what you're saying, and recall that getting to this point required Obama to change his mind on the issue. But the Republican Party makes it pretty easy for the Dems (and Obama by association) to win some level of default credit on this issue, even if it's under the heading 'happened on his watch.' Or, looked at a different way, would we be in the same situation had Romney been president?