…and nothing but a glance, very brief, in which I raise the question, was Barrack Obama a great President? I see ABC News has a poll saying that. Greatest President of the lifetime of those polled. Hmmmm.
Well, his was one of those Presidencies — there have not been that many, really, or perhaps none — in which the elites, Hollywood, those who play hard at identity politics decided this dazzlingly fine and personable liberal young speaker got to walk, boat-to-boat, on water, get the Nobel Peace Prize, t-shirts, Oprah. He was above criticism in their mind from the start, every bit as much as, in their mind, Trump is beneath contempt. An example of what I call the physics of politics — for every action there is an equal and opposite RE-action.
But while I liked President Obama, spoke with him briefly just once before he was elected and can well understand why people would contrast this natural “consoler-in-chief” unfavorably with the blustery, uncouth incumbent, I can’t see that he did anything except saddle us with an unworkable health care plan and push the Democratic Party culturally left — a journey it is continuing. Where are the guiding, stable principles? For instance — one tender example — on what grounds, other than a glance at the polls, was he ever against gay marriage? And one what grounds, other than a glance at the polls, justified his shift on such a profound, paradigm-adjusting issue?
It seems to me he ruled by executive order. This has become popular in the time of Congressional gridlock. But Congress is often gridlocked because we are in the middle of a shatteringly important social-cultural shift that threatens to pull us apart. There are days I think the modern American Presidency, not unlike the modern Papacy, has become too complex for one person.
As Kevin D. Williamson put it back in December of 2016, Obama ruled with a pen and a phone. He was great, as Clinton was great, to those who measure greatness by the force of your speech. In substance, in all kindness, I don’t think we’ve seen greatness for a while.
19 Cent Notebook 