A Presidency Squandered

A PRESIDENCY SQUANDERED

In January 2009, the future seemed to be all Barack Obama’s.

By Victor Davis Hanson


The Obama narrative is that he inherited the worst mess in memory and has been stymied ever since by a partisan Congress — while everything from new ATM technology to the Japanese tsunami conspired against him. But how true are those claims?

Barack Obama entered office with an approval rating of over 70 percent. John McCain’s campaign had been anemic and almost at times seemed as if it was designed to lose nobly to the nation’s first African-American presidential nominee.

One-percenter magnates welcomed Obama. If Steve Wynn, Donald Trump, and Mort Zuckerman now blast Obama, just four years ago they seemed to have found him a relief from George W. Bush. Christopher Buckley and the late Christopher Hitchens openly endorsed him. Republicans like Colin Powell, Scott McClellan, and Doug Kmiec all went public with their support. One got the impression from what David Frum, David Brooks, and Peggy Noonan wrote that with a wink and a nod they had welcomed his election. Never has a president entered office with so much goodwill from so many diverse quarters.

Rarely does a president enter office with a majority in both the House and the Senate. Not only did Obama do so, but his soaring ratings put enormous pressure on the Republican minorities to join the Democratic majorities. Liberals were talking about a new era of Democratic political dominance.

No prior president had such a supportive media. Sometime in mid-2008, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Time, Newsweek, CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, PBS, NPR, AP, Reuters, and hundreds of other mainstream voices had decided that Barack Obama was not just a liberal Democrat whom they would tilt toward, but a messianic figure for whom they gladly sacrificed the last ounce of disinterested coverage.

The financial collapse was four months in the past when Barack Obama took the oath of office, and its immediate aftershocks had been addressed with the October 3, 2008, TARP stabilization protocols. Obama’s chorus simply blamed the entire panic on George Bush; and the idea that government guarantees from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae — which the Democrats had backed — had ensured huge loans for the unqualified to buy homes at inflated prices was mostly ignored. The recession was finishing its second year and would end five months into the Obama administration, in June 2009. The stock market had mostly stopped falling before Obama took office. In other words, Obama entered office with all the blame for the bad economy going to his predecessor and with the end of the deep recession in sight.

The president’s own racial heritage was said to be emblematic of the new racial healing. Indeed, it was promised that race itself would become incidental rather than essential to the nation’s persona. Advisers and Cabinet officers like Valerie Jarrett, Eric Holder, Hilda Solis, Ken Salazar, Van Jones, Steven Chu, and Hillary Clinton were said to “look like America” far more than the old white guys of the past.

Abroad, the unpopular war in Iraq was quiet after the successful surge, and agreements were already concluded about the withdrawal of U.S. forces; in Joe Biden’s words, the war in Iraq had the potential to be “one of the great achievements of the administration.” Everyone had forgotten that Obama himself had urged a unilateral withdrawal as early as March 2008. Afghanistan was still the “good” war but the one where, as Representative Steny Hoyer put it, “We took our eye off the ball”; during the campaign Obama and other Democrats promised to win it.

Most Americans believed Obama when he made the argument that our current problems abroad had mostly started with George Bush and would end when he left. Iran and Syria were said to be hostile only because they had been gratuitously alienated by Bush. Ditto Putin’s Russia. Our battles with the U.N. were said to be over, as multilateralism was trumpeted as the new cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy — a loud boast sure to win even more goodwill both from allies and from neutrals that had been turned off by the twangy Texan Bush. Just as Obama had wowed thousands at Berlin’s Victory Column, so he would win over the world, as his first interview with Al-Arabiya presaged. Obama was shortly to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on the theory of what he represented rather than the facts of what he had done.

Many claimed that Obama was the “true conservative,” as he blasted Bush as unpatriotic for piling up $4 trillion in debt and promised to cut the annual deficit in half by the end of his first term. We heard all sorts of bring-us-together rhetoric: a new bipartisanship, a new civility, a new transparency, a new campaign ethos, a new everything — coupled with lots of “no mores”: no more earmarks, no more revolving doors, no more former lobbyists in government, no more serial fundraisers on the government dime.

Obama had the luxury of enjoying the security benefits that had accrued from George Bush’s controversial protocols like Guantanamo, renditions, military tribunals, preventive detention, intercepts, wiretaps, and drone hits, while not having his own signature upon them. The result was surreal, as Obama embraced or expanded all of what he had earlier blasted as unconstitutional or superfluous — to the sudden quiet of a once-raucous civil-libertarian Left. Somehow Obama managed to blame Bush for providing him with the vital measures that he damned even as he utilized them.

Even stranger was a revolution in oil and gas exploration that seemed to coincide with the Obama inauguration. Obama had the best of both worlds: He took office when gas was below $2 a gallon — saving the nation billions of dollars — and when the novel techniques of fracking and horizontal drilling had just tripled known U.S. reserves and promised to offer a godsend of new energy on federal lands.

In other words, the future seemed to be all Barack Obama’s. Bill Clinton’s second term offered an easy blueprint of what bipartisan centrism might achieve. Balance the budget and create jobs, and the nation will forgive anything, from lying under oath to romancing an intern in the Oval Office.

And what happened?

Barack Obama chose to ram down the nation’s throat a polarizing, statist agenda, energized by the sort of hardball politics he had learned in Chicago. Rather than bring the races, classes, and genders together, he gave us an us-versus-them crusade against the “1 percenters” and the job creators who had not “paid their fair share,” accusations of a Republican “war on women,” and the worst racial polarization in modern memory. Statesmanship degenerated into chronic blame-gaming and “Bush did it,” as he piled up over $5 trillion in new debt. Financial sobriety was abandoned in favor of creating new entitlement constituencies, and job creation was deemed far less important than nationalizing the health-care system.

And so here we are, three weeks before the election, with a squandered presidency and a president desperately seeking reelection not by defending his record, but by demonizing his predecessor, his opponent — and half of the country.

What, then, was Obama’s first term?

Jimmy Carter’s ends justifying Richard Nixon’s means.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/330505/presidency-squandered-victor-davis-hanson

 

They had looked for great things from Obama by listening to his words. But, they didn't study his past to realize who he really is and that greatness wasn't in him. It was a hard lesson for America. Let's not add to it.

 

Obama wqas only voted in because of a bad economy at the time of elections; the independents gave him the presidency on his 'hope and change', with a blank canvas to get things moving. Four-years later, like this article states, he squandered his shot and I predict the independents that gave him life, will take his ass out (of the presidency). The polarization is fucking huge, and it will all go down to the indy's....

 

Ah yes, Victor Davis Hanson. Where have I seen him before?

Here:

That was him in 2007. The actual reality of what was accomplished in Iraq finally surfaced for real about a week or two ago:

...and this:

The reality is Iraq has wound up an ally of Iran. Some of us warned that would happen at the time. What Bush accomplished with American blood & treasure was to hand Iran a victory, and Hanson cheered it all the way.
Douchebag.

 

You can't refute anything in the article, so you change the subject. Very weak. The fact is the article is an accurate description of Obama's presidency.

 

Really? I've only begun.
Let's see, the last time the economy fell into a ditch as deep as 2008 was 1929.
As I recall, when FDR took over in March, 1933, the economy was at a dead stop. That was three and a half years later.

Three and a half years after FDR took over, where was the US economy? What had been accomplished in that time?

Where was it three and a half years after Obama took office?

Some of us do remember the difference between what a Republican does in a time of extreme crisis and a Democrat. The difference is like night and day. One does nothing and wonders why things don't improve and ends up with a dead economy, while the other deals with the reality he is presented with, and improves it.

 

Depends upon your point of view.

If you think the country should have been advanced and some work done on our problems, then "presidency squandered".

If you think "hurt America as much as you can get away with it without being called upon the carpet to answer for your actions", then Odumbo has been a GREAT SUCCESS!!

 

Housing Market Index
Bloomberg Economic Calendar, 16 Oct 2012

"Highlights
Buyers are growing in numbers in the new home market, especially serious buyers according to the nation's home builders whose housing market index keeps moving higher with a one point gain in October to 41. Trends in current sales and especially in expectations of future sales have been sloping steeply higher this year though both these components, at 42 and 51, show no change this month. But the traffic component, where increases had been lagging, is jumping sharply and, at 35, is at its highest level since the boom days of 2006. Record low mortgage rates, as well as improving consumer confidence, are giving a lift to the housing market which, though still bumpy, is an increasing source of strength for the economy. Increases are expected in tomorrow's housing starts and permits report.

"Market Consensus before announcement
NAHB housing market index rose three points in August to 40 on the housing market index for September. This is the fifth straight gain and lifts the index to a five-year high. An optimistic outlook is now the dominant factor lifting the index as six-month sales expectations are up a big eight points to 51. The component for current sales, at 42, is up a solid four points in the month. Lagging is traffic, up only one point to 31 in a hint that buyers who are looking are serious. Top concerns among builders include tight conditions in the credit market and a lack of building lots."

 

fdr sucked ass too ,thanks for reminding us of that FACT.

 

So, four more years of Hoover would have been better? No Glass-Steagall or FDIC, eh? Yeah that would've worked real well.