Obama personage rises, presidency fades ten years out

By Walt Zlotow  

The Obama Presidential Center opened Thursday with Super Bowl style hoopla for one of the most beloved American leaders this century.

As one Chicagoan reminisced about meeting the candidate in an early failed election for state representative, “You’ll have a hard time getting elected with that name.”

But Obama’s unique combination of charisma, eloquence, messaging allowed the first black American to rise to the presidency in 2008 and prove it wasn’t a fluke by repeating in 2012.

Alas, the politics of personal destruction Republicans created to largely destroy the presidency of Bill Clinton went into overdrive to prevent Obama from delivering on most of the wonderful “audacity of hope” his presidency promised. Their billionaire class created the Tea Party as a metaphor to brand Obama as a 21st century version of King George taxing the working class into poverty.

It took over half his first term just to achieve his signature Affordable Care Act (informally known as Obamacare). It was a watered-down health insurance improvement for the needy that Republicans pounced upon to demonize Obama as a socialist getting government between Joe Sixpack and his doctor. It worked. While Obama got reelected, he never achieved another landmark domestic breakthrough.

In foreign policy, Obama was largely captive to the national security state. He sent tens of thousands of bombs raining down on 7 countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Libya. He foolishly turned the last into a failed state, along with much of the rest of Africa, by intervening in its 2011 civil war. He later called it the “worst mistake” of his presidency. He dropped over 26,000 bombs in 2016 alone, killing thousands of innocents posing not the slightest threat to US national security interests. He gifted Israel with $38 billion over 10 years to continue its grotesque imprisonment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank to further the creation of Greater Isreal. Any largess to Isreal should have been conditioned on creation of a Palestinian state and peace with its neighbors guaranteed by the UN and led by the US, not endless war financed by Obama and all his predecessors and successors.

He did achieve 2 signature accomplishments: The re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba and the July 14, 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly referred to as the Iran Nuclear Deal. However, both were largely overturned by successor Trump in his first term and not reestablished by Obama’s former VP Biden when he succeeded Trump in 2021.

Why wasn’t Obama out front and center attacking Trump’s monstrous polices in his first term, then demanding Biden adhere to policies Biden championed as Obama’s Vice President when he succeeded Trump? Instead, Obama basked in the glow of the revered former president offering lofty platitudes about the promise of American democracy if only we worked together as one people… something that will never happen. Progress results from grinding against and defeating the forces of evil. Obama appeared to have no stomach for that.

The gigantic $850 Million Obama Presidential Center will surely be a wonderful economic boom to the disadvantaged Chicago South Side. But if it were sized to the accomplishments of Obama’s 8 presidential years rather than his lofty status as a beloved presidential figure, it might be a tad difficult to locate.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL