'...entirely repudiated them... [He] went in the other direction. What does that mean for a society, for a democracy, when the people that you elect on the basis of promises can basically suborn the will of the electorate?'
In a further piece, Daniel Lazare makes some cogent observations about Obama's Oval Office address delivered in response to the recent San Bernardino shootings in particular and terrorism in general. Lazare rightly speaks to Obama's 'denials, half-truths and outright misstatements' that leave no doubt 'the man is clinging to a failed policy and that whatever changes he makes in the wake of San Bernardino will only make matters worse.' [See "The Incredible Shrinking President", Consortiumnews, Dec. 7, 2015]
Insofar as terrorism itself goes, Lazare point out that Obama has a "selective view" of what terrorism is, and it would seem to go well beyond mere semantics. Whilst noting, "everyone agrees" that setting off a bomb on a crowded bus is terrorism, he rightly asks, 'what about using an F-16 to deposit a bomb in the middle of a Yemeni wedding party--is that terrorism too? If shooting up health workers is terrorism, then what about using an AC-130 gunship to bomb and strafe hospital workers in Afghanistan? What is the difference?'
Lazare does not leave the question hanging, the answer going to the heart of the president's credibility and integrity, and from there the larger considerations related to his legacy:
'By any measure, there isn't any [difference]. This is why Obama and others utter the word "terrorism" so incessantly--because it is a highly loaded term that serves as a smoke-screen to disguise the true nature of their own activities. It allows them to get away with murder, but it also leaves them punching at the air. By arbitrarily classifying certain groups as terrorist or non-terrorist merely because of which side they happen to be on at any given moment, Obama and other abusers of the T-word wind up not only fooling the public, but themselves as well.'
Given what he inherited from the previous administration, many would say the aforementioned "weight of expectation" was always going to be impossible to live up to. Yet with the possible exception of JFK and maybe Ronald Reagan, few presidents in the post World War Two era did more in their bid for the Oval Office to add ballast to that expectation than Number 44.
In and of itself this presents us with some extra challenges in fairly and objectively assessing the incumbent's time in office, and we might posit not because BHO has thus far avoided being assassinated (or in Reagan's case, an attempt to that end), whilst in office.
To highlight this particular quandary, the following views from Sheldon Wolin in a 2009 interview may be apposite. After indicating he didn't expect much from the new Administration and that "the basic systems" [of power and influence] are going to "stay in place" unchallenged -- Wolin had this to say:
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