by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
National Review Online<\/em><\/p>\n The Obama narrative is that he inherited the worst mess in memory and has been stymied ever since by a partisan Congress \u2014 while everything from new ATM technology to the Japanese tsunami conspired against him. But how true are those claims?<\/p>\n Barack Obama entered office with an approval rating of over 70 percent. John McCain\u2019s campaign had been anemic and almost at times seemed as if it was designed to lose nobly to the nation\u2019s first African-American presidential nominee.<\/p>\n One-percenter magnates welcomed Obama. If Steve Wynn, Donald Trump, and Mort Zuckerman now blast Obama, just four years ago they seemed to have\u00a0found him a relief from George W. Bush. Christopher Buckley and the late Christopher Hitchens openly endorsed him. Republicans like Colin Powell, Scott McClellan, and Doug Kmiec all went public with their support. One got the impression from what David Frum, David Brooks, and Peggy Noonan wrote that with a wink and a nod they had welcomed his election. Never has a president entered office with so much goodwill from so many diverse quarters.<\/p>\n Rarely does a president enter office with a majority in both the House and the Senate. Not only did Obama do so, but his soaring ratings put enormous pressure on the Republican minorities to join the Democratic majorities. Liberals were talking about a new era of Democratic political dominance.<\/p>\n No prior president had such a supportive media. Sometime in mid-2008, the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>, the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>, the\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/em>,\u00a0Time<\/em>,Newsweek<\/em>, CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, PBS, NPR, AP, Reuters, and hundreds of other mainstream voices had decided that Barack Obama was not just a liberal Democrat whom they would tilt toward, but a messianic figure for whom they gladly sacrificed the last ounce of disinterested coverage.<\/p>\n The financial collapse was four months in the past when Barack Obama took the oath of office, and its immediate aftershocks\u00a0had been addressed with the October 3, 2008, TARP stabilization protocols. Obama\u2019s chorus simply blamed the entire panic on George Bush; and the idea that government guarantees from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae \u2014 which the Democrats had backed \u2014 had ensured huge loans for the unqualified to buy homes at inflated prices was mostly ignored. The recession was finishing its second year and would end five months into the Obama administration, in June 2009. The stock market had mostly stopped falling before Obama took office. In other words, Obama entered office with all the blame for the bad economy going to his predecessor and with the end of the deep recession in sight.<\/p>\n The president\u2019s own racial heritage was said to be emblematic of the new racial healing. Indeed, it was promised that race itself would become incidental rather than essential to the nation\u2019s persona. Advisers and Cabinet officers like Valerie Jarrett, Eric Holder, Hilda Solis, Ken Salazar, Van Jones, Steven Chu, and Hillary Clinton were said to \u201clook like America\u201d far more than the old white guys of the past.<\/p>\n Abroad, the unpopular war in\u00a0Iraq was quiet after the successful surge, and agreements were already concluded about the withdrawal of US forces; in Joe Biden\u2019s words, the war in Iraq had the potential to be \u201cone of the great achievements of the administration.\u201d Everyone had forgotten that Obama himself had urged a unilateral withdrawal as early as March 2008. Afghanistan was still the \u201cgood\u201d war but the one where, as Representative Steny Hoyer put it, \u201cWe took our eye off the ball\u201d; during the campaign Obama and other Democrats promised to win it.<\/p>\n Most Americans believed Obama when he made the argument that our current problems abroad had mostly started with George Bush and would end when he left. Iran and Syria were said to be hostile only because they had been gratuitously alienated by Bush. Ditto Putin\u2019s Russia. Our battles with the UN were said to be over, as multilateralism was trumpeted as the new cornerstone of US foreign policy \u2014 a loud boast sure to win even more goodwill both from allies and from neutrals that had been turned off by the twangy Texan Bush. Just as Obama had wowed thousands at Berlin\u2019s Victory Column, so he would win over the world, as his first interview with\u00a0Al-Arabiya<\/em>\u00a0presaged. Obama was shortly to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on the theory of what he represented rather than the facts of what he had done.<\/p>\n Many claimed that Obama was the \u201ctrue conservative,\u201d as he blasted Bush as unpatriotic for piling up $4 trillion in debt and promised to cut the annual deficit in half by the end of his first term. We heard all sorts of bring-us-together rhetoric: a new bipartisanship, a new civility, a new transparency, a new campaign ethos, a new everything \u2014 coupled with lots of \u201cno mores\u201d: no more earmarks, no more revolving doors, no more former lobbyists in government, no more serial fundraisers on the government dime.<\/p>\n Obama had the luxury of enjoying the security benefits that had accrued from George Bush\u2019s controversial\u00a0protocols like Guantanamo, renditions, military tribunals, preventive detention, intercepts, wiretaps, and drone hits, while not having his own signature upon them. The result was surreal, as Obama embraced or expanded all of what he had earlier blasted as unconstitutional or superfluous \u2014 to the sudden quiet of a once-raucous civil-libertarian Left. Somehow Obama managed to blame Bush for providing him with the vital measures that he damned even as he utilized them.<\/p>\n Even stranger was a revolution in oil and gas exploration that seemed to coincide with the Obama inauguration. Obama had the best of both worlds: He took office when gas was below $2 a gallon \u2014 saving the nation billions of dollars \u2014 and when the novel techniques of fracking and horizontal drilling had just tripled known US reserves and promised to offer a godsend of new energy on federal lands.<\/p>\n In other words, the future seemed to be all Barack Obama\u2019s. Bill Clinton\u2019s second term offered an easy blueprint of what bipartisan centrism might achieve. Balance the budget and create jobs, and the nation will forgive anything, from lying under oath to romancing an intern in the Oval Office.<\/p>\n And what happened?<\/p>\n Barack Obama chose to ram down the nation\u2019s throat a polarizing, statist agenda, energized by the sort of hardball politics he had learned in Chicago. Rather than bring the races, classes, and genders together, he gave us an us-versus-them crusade against the \u201c1 percenters\u201d and the job creators who had not \u201cpaid their fair share,\u201d accusations of a Republican \u201cwar on women,\u201d and the worst racial polarization in modern memory. Statesmanship degenerated into chronic blame-gaming and \u201cBush did it,\u201d as he piled up over $5 trillion in new debt. Financial sobriety was abandoned in favor of creating new entitlement constituencies, and job creation was deemed far less important than nationalizing the healthcare system.<\/p>\n And so here we are, three weeks before the election, with a squandered presidency and a president desperately seeking reelection not by defending his record, but by demonizing his predecessor, his opponent \u2014 and half of the country.<\/p>\n What, then, was Obama\u2019s first term?<\/p>\n Jimmy Carter\u2019s ends justifying Richard Nixon\u2019s means.<\/p>\n \u00a92012 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The Obama narrative is that he inherited the worst mess in memory and has been stymied ever since by a partisan Congress \u2014 while everything from new ATM technology to the Japanese tsunami conspired against him. But how true are those claims?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":[78,536],"tags":[12,210,165,1057,1036,73,211,213,212,1052],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-6s","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6411,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-indicts-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":400,"position":0},"title":"Obama Indicts Obama","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 3, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0PJ Media One of the problems that Barack Obama has in mounting an attack against the Assad regime is that the gambit violates every argument Barack Obama used against the Bush administration to establish his own anti-war candidacy. The hypocrisy is so stunning that it infuriates\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Commentary","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/commentary-obama-administration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12545,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-new-old-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":400,"position":1},"title":"The New Old Obama","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 4, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness In his latest incarnation as president emeritus and corporate multimillionaire community activist, we are reminded of the earlier Barack Obama of \u201cget in their face,\u201d \u201ctake a gun to a knife fight,\u201d and \u201cpunish our enemies\u201d vintage. From time to time, Obama ventures from\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6457,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/predictably-misleading\/","url_meta":{"origin":400,"position":2},"title":"Predictably Misleading","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 12, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner\u00a0 The one requisite in a presidential speech is honesty. Without it, nothing else matters. The president\u2019s speech last night was incoherent in its call to be ready at some future day to use force that he just recently insisted must be used immediately.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Commentary","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/commentary-obama-administration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":416,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-problem-last-night-was-not-just-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":400,"position":3},"title":"The Problem Last Night Was Not Just Obama","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 6, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner The problem for Obama is not that his performance was disastrous, but rather that it was his normal workmanlike coasting. But this time, and for the first time, he was pitted against a skilled debater who had both the better argument and the better\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":6732,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-fallout-for-the-left\/","url_meta":{"origin":400,"position":4},"title":"Obama’s Fallout for the Left","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 12, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"He will not be harmed by his \"misspeaking,\" but his fellow liberals will. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online\u00a0 Conservatives keep blaring, \u201cObama lied!\u201d over the president\u2019s serial untruths about the Affordable Care Act. Even liberal pundits now talk of the president\u2019s \u201cmisspeaking,\u201d or even of his \u201cmisleading\u201d statements\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Political Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Political Culture","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/political-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/3963358921_d33ba22354-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":687,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-they-did-it-campaign\/","url_meta":{"origin":400,"position":5},"title":"Obama’s ‘They’-Did-It Campaign","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 24, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The next five months should be interesting \u2014 given that Barack Obama is now experiencing something entirely unique in his heretofore stellar career: widespread criticism of his performance and increasing weariness with his boilerplate and his teleprompted eloquence. Starting with his Occidental days,\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400"}],"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=400"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5834,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400\/revisions\/5834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}