by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
National Review Online<\/em><\/p>\n The election of Barack Obama brought all sorts of contradictions. A man with about the least prior executive experience in presidential history was suddenly acclaimed a \u201cgod\u201d and the smartest man ever to assume the office.<\/p>\n Most important, a number of critical changes were heralded that would help address the supposed disasters of the Bush administration: a new \u201creset\u201d foreign policy, a Keynesian economic miracle, a commitment to \u201cmillions of green jobs,\u201d and a promise to end politics as usual, specifically the hardball divisive rancor of the past. Obamism, in short, was not a mere change in administration, but a religion.<\/p>\n In less than three years, however, the Obama administration has established a far different legacy from the one it promised, and the lessons of 2009\u20132011 will be with us for a long time:<\/p>\n 1. The type and nature of a presidential candidate\u2019s prior experience will be examined as never before. Obama\u2019s two years in the US Senate are now universally seen as insufficient preparation. The result will be more emphasis on executive experience and far longer tenure. Fairly or not, the Obama legacy hangs over the possible presidential aspirations of everyone from a Chris Christie or Marco Rubio to a Sarah Palin or Herman Cain.<\/p>\n 2. For the time being, the media have lost any credibility as nonpartisan and disinterested investigators of presidential candidates. That many journalists now admit they were \u201csaps\u201d or accept that Obama was unqualified only confirms prior culpability. After 2008, can anyone possibly take the media seriously if they complain that a candidate will not release his undergraduate transcripts, or that he once bragged that he attended every service (\u201ceach week\u201d) of a racist pastor, or that he once liked \u201cblow\u201d? After Obama, an entire array of old gotchas are off the table.<\/p>\n 3. Ivy League certification and prestigious awards will mean far less. The architects of the massive but ineffective borrowing \u2014 Geithner, Goolsbee, Orszag, Romer, Summers \u2014 were either esteemed academics or high-ranking bureaucrats. We are no longer impressed that Barack Obama and Eric Holder have Ivy League law degrees, or that President Obama and Steven Chu hold Nobel Prizes \u2014 not after Solyndra, Fast and Furious, and the present stagnation. Americans assume that Herman Cain learned far more of value turning around Godfather\u2019s Pizza than Barack Obama learned as editor ofHarvard Law Review<\/em>. Texas A&M is about as relevant to Rick Perry\u2019s creating millions of jobs as Harvard is to Barack Obama\u2019s destroying millions.<\/p>\n 4. Again, fairly or not, \u201cgreen\u201d no longer denotes a noble effort to conserve resources and achieve energy independence. A Van Jones, a Solyndra, yet another promise to emulate Spain\u2019s windmills and solar plants, one more call to borrow hundreds of billions for high-speed rail, and more Al Gore profit-driven escapades and fiery outbursts finally add up. Note that the president simply cannot any longer repeat the mantra, \u201cMillions of new green jobs.\u201d You see, there are too many video clips of such boasts associated with failed ventures. The age of Obama has turned \u201cgreen\u201d into a refuge for scoundrels. The next era will be marked by unprecedented national wealth from vast new gas and oil exploration, not from thousands of acres of subsidized solar panels and windmills. How ironic that Barack Obama will eventually do more for the gas and oil industry than any other president in recent memory.<\/p>\n 5. We are reminded that populism and the high life don\u2019t mix. Barack Obama\u2019s efforts to play Huey Long were sidetracked by First Family detours to Martha\u2019s Vineyard, Costa del Sol, and Vail. One cannot both beg from and demonize Wall Street, and still play community organizer. Obama cemented the notion that liberal Democrats are the party of really big money and of very little money \u2014 and of few in between. The next populist will have to cut back on golf, stay at Camp David, and avoid the playgrounds of the rich and famous.<\/p>\n 6. Keynesian economics are about over for a generation. The antidote to the Bush $4 trillion debt was not another $4 trillion in less than half the time. With near-zero interest rates, record numbers of Americans on food stamps and unemployment, an annual federal budget $2 trillion higher than just ten years ago, and nearly $16 trillion in aggregate debt \u2014 and all this along with a moribund economy \u2014 few will any longer believe that printing more money and growing government work. More of what has not worked won\u2019t magically start to work.<\/p>\n 7. Barack Obama has essentially ended the smears against the Bush-Cheney anti-terrorism protocols. Having himself smeared the prior administration relentlessly, he became\u00a0de facto<\/em>\u00a0its greatest defender. One cannot insist past practices were immoral or illegal and then embrace or expand them all. \u201cWar criminal\u201d will recede into the insanity of yesteryear, given that no logician could figure out how waterboarding three self-confessed mass murderers was a crime, while vaporizing two thousand suspected terrorists \u2014 including American citizens \u2014 by Hellfire missiles is not. Apparently Guantanamo is no longer a gulag, rendition no longer a crime, preventive detention no longer a shredding of the Constitution.<\/p>\n 8. Politics simply don\u2019t change. Obama first embraced and then rejected filibusters \u2014 the only constant was his relative political position. \u201cGridlock\u201d was good in 2005, bad in 2011. The suggestion that we should cancel congressional elections for a few years comes from a Democratic governor, not a cigar-chewing, epauletted ex-general. Exasperated liberals call for circumventing the \u201cmessy\u201d democratic process, the bothersome Electoral College, the unfairness of senatorial elections \u2014 apparently not out of long-expressed philosophical worries, but out of angst that the wonderful system that elected Obama and gave him huge congressional majorities suddenly became unworkable, say, around November 2010.<\/p>\n 9. Fight the Smears, JournoList, and AttackWatch.com are not the work of a uniter. \u201cPunish our enemies\u201d and \u201cget in their faces\u201d don\u2019t go well with Greek columns and rainbowed backgrounds. Again, whether rightly or wrongly, the next time a political candidate promises to change the political landscape in Washington, we will have more, not less, suspicion of his motives \u2014 and expect website hit lists to follow.<\/p>\n 10. The antidote to Bush\u2019s \u201cbring \u2019em on\u201d bravado was not asking the Arab League to approve no-fly zones over Libya while bombing targets \u201cfrom behind.\u201d The world of 2008 is pretty much the world of 2011 \u2014 with the caveat that an often unliked US is still as unliked but now less respected and feared. Ask the Iranians, Syrians, Russians, and Chinese \u2014 or for that matter the Japanese, Israelis, South Koreans, Taiwanese, and Eastern Europeans.<\/p>\n A sadder but wiser electorate in 2012 simply won\u2019t believe that any candidate \u2014 Democrat or Republican \u2014 can cool the planet or stop the seas from rising. Barack Obama taught us that \u2014 and a lot more besides.<\/p>\n \u00a92011 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The election of Barack Obama brought all sorts of contradictions. A man with about the least prior executive experience in presidential history was suddenly acclaimed a \u201cgod\u201d and the smartest man ever to assume the office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[536],"tags":[12,308,623,580,553,50,442,134,88,320,458],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-vL","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":736,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/two-three-many-obamas\/","url_meta":{"origin":1969,"position":0},"title":"Two, Three, Many Obamas","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 1, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online As the campaign heats up, one problem is that we continue to meet lots of different Barack Obamas \u2014 to such a degree that we don\u2019t know which, if any, is really president. I think the president believes that private-equity firms harm the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3418,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/america-through-the-looking-glass\/","url_meta":{"origin":1969,"position":1},"title":"America Through the Looking Glass","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 26, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media President Obama yesterday praised Brazil for its new offshore oil industry and said he wants to buy as much oil as possible in this new win-win partnership \u2014 although we have piled up $5 trillion in new debt, curtailed new petroleum exploration off shore\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Punditry"","block_context":{"text":"Punditry","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/punditry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2488,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/is-the-president-in-recovery\/","url_meta":{"origin":1969,"position":2},"title":"Is the President in Recovery?","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services President Obama does not care much about deficits \u2014 other than worrying that big debt might matter in his re-election campaign. In his first three budgets, Obama borrowed nearly $5 trillion. Currently, the government is borrowing about 45 percent of everything that it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Debt and Deficits"","block_context":{"text":"Debt and Deficits","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/debt-and-deficits\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2032,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-becomes-the-fall-guy\/","url_meta":{"origin":1969,"position":3},"title":"Obama Becomes the Fall Guy","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 19, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Suddenly, liberal op-ed writers are trashing \u2014 even lampooning \u2014 Barack Obama as a one-term president (\u201cone and done\u201d). Centrist Democrats up for reelection in 2012 openly worry about inviting a kindred president into their districts, lest the new pariah lose them votes.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Campaign 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Campaign 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/campaign-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4086,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-tab-comes-due-in-2011\/","url_meta":{"origin":1969,"position":4},"title":"The Tab Comes Due in 2011","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 17, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and both the elder and younger George Bush all found the third and fourth years of their presidencies harder than the first and second. The nation and the world tired of speechmaking. The novelty of a new commander in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "First Term Policies"","block_context":{"text":"First Term Policies","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/first-term-policies\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1645,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/give-em-hell-barry\/","url_meta":{"origin":1969,"position":5},"title":"Give ‘Em Hell, Barry","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 10, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Recently both First Lady Michelle Obama and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis went to the key swing state of Florida to blast the president\u2019s adversaries. For the first lady, Obama\u2019s opponents were concerned only with \u201cthe few at the top\u201d and care little for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Debt and Deficits"","block_context":{"text":"Debt and Deficits","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/debt-and-deficits\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1969"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1970,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969\/revisions\/1970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}