Perhaps it was inevitable, that any president branded and sold as “Hope” was destined to disappoint. But in these scorching summer doldrums of 2013, you have to wonder: did it have to be this disappointing?
Is this really the same Barack
Obama who had such high expectations for resetting relationships with
the Muslim world that he gave his first television interview as
president to Al Arabiya television, declaring that "my job is to
communicate the fact that the United States has a stake in the
well-being of the Muslim world”?
Now
we're giving aid to Syrian rebels who eat the heart of their defeated
foes, while in Egypt we seem resigned to working with whoever can fill
Tahrir Square with the most people at the moment. Immediately after his
election in 2008, President-Elect Obama said in response to a question
from Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes about the use of executive orders, "I have said repeatedly I intend to close Guantánamo."
But
five years later, prisoners in Guantánamo are trying to starve
themselves to death because, whatever he said he intended, he hasn't
done it. He can blame Republicans all he wants, but as senator Obama said in a 2007 debate,
"When we have a situation like Guantánamo where we have suspended
habeas corpus, to the extent we are not being true to our values and our
ideals, that sends a negative message to the world and it gives us less
leverage when we want to deal with countries who are abusing human
rights."Looming over all this is a president who doesn’t seem to care what anyone thinks.
As
they say, "hope" is not a strategy, but it turns out that was Obama’s
plan for dealing with the world. The hallmark of great presidents is
clarity of vision and purpose or at least the perception of such. In his
best moments as a candidate, Barack Obama offered that like few
political figures of this or any time. He seemed to believe deeply in
his mission, so many Americans believed. Indeed, many across the globe
believed.
But
today it's precisely a lack of belief and conviction that haunts this
president. His support for the Syrian rebels seems forced and reluctant.
If he has a diplomatic or strategic vision for Egypt, it's a mystery.
In Afghanistan, over three times as many Americans have died under
President Obama than President Bush, and it's difficult to maintain that
the American policy has been a success. In the last campaign, President
Obama repeatedly assured the public that all U.S. troops would be out
by 2014. Now we are told U.S. troops will remain for an indefinite time
helping to train Afghan forces. We are negotiating with the Taliban but
we aren't negotiating with the Taliban. It's a mess and Americans
continue to die.
In 2007, Nicholas Kristof wrote a column for The New York Times hailing Obama—Man of the World.
“His experience as an antipoverty organizer in Chicago” wrote the
pundit, “gives him a deep grasp of a crucial 21st-century
challenge—poverty in America—that almost all politicians lack.”
But
today fewer Americans are working full time than when Obama took
office, and a record number of Americans have fallen into poverty.
Almost half of New York City lives below the poverty line. Over 16
million more Americans are now on food stamps. But the president has
spent more time playing golf with Tiger Woods and raising money with
Wall Street millionaires—his presidential campaigns have raised more
money from Wall Street than any in history—than focusing concern for the
poor.
The
president's greatest passion is clearly for more gun control. While his
hometown of Chicago has draconian gun control laws, it is a
slaughterhouse of gun violence, and still the president is unable to
muster support for new legislation. Every time he talks about how 90
percent of the public supports his position, it only makes him look more
impotent. This is a president who can't even pass legislation with 90
percent public support?
Obamacare remains his signature
achievement and it is likely to be the program for which he will be most
judged by history. At the moment, like Obama's foreign policy, it's a
chaotic mess, a policy that appears to have timid support from those
charged with its execution.
Looming
over all this is a president who doesn't seem to care what anyone
thinks. No doubt he feels vindicated by reelection and that's
understandable, perhaps inevitable. But if reelection is validity
enough, then President Bush's victory proved that the Iraq war was a
success. Perhaps Obama will wake up and surprise us with a new agenda
and renewed engagement. Perhaps it's just the summer heat and the
inevitable realization that promising more than you can deliver works
only in short-term transactions and eight years is a long time.
One
thing is certain: the Obama years will be judged by results, not the
quality of his excuses. You can't ask to be granted the chance to become
a transformational figure in world history, be given that opportunity,
and then hope that you can blame anyone else when Hope didn't work out.
These are the Obama years. How's it working out?
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