{"id":6735,"date":"2013-11-12T10:30:03","date_gmt":"2013-11-12T18:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=6735"},"modified":"2013-11-12T10:30:03","modified_gmt":"2013-11-12T18:30:03","slug":"americas-wilderness-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/americas-wilderness-years\/","title":{"rendered":"America’s Wilderness Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0PJ Media<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Most two-term presidents leave some sort of legacy. Ronald Reagan won the Cold War. George W. Bush prevented another 9\/11, and constructed an anti-terrorism protocol that even his critical successor embraced and often expanded.<\/p>\n

\"PhotoEven our one-term presidents have achieved something. JFK got Soviet missiles out of Cuba. LBJ oversaw passage of civil rights legislation. Jerry Ford restored integrity to the White House. Jimmy Carter finally issued the Carter Doctrine to stop Soviet expansionism at the Persian Gulf. George H.W. Bush won the first Persian Gulf War and got Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait.<\/p>\n

And even our impeached or abdicated presidents at least left some positive legacies. Richard Nixon went to China and enacted d\u00e9tente. Bill Clinton through compromise balanced the budget and incurred budget surpluses.<\/p>\n

But Barack Obama?<\/p>\n

The economy is anemic. We have never seen unemployment\u00a0dip below 7% in the last five years<\/a>. Real jobless rates that include those who have given up on working are perhaps double the official figures. By 2017 the national debt will have doubled. The stimulus did not lead to a\u00a0\u201csummer of recovery.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Near zero interest rates, vast expansions in the money supply, and huge increases in federal redistributive payouts have not jump-started anything \u2014 except to end entirely the cherished American idea of receiving a modest interest rate on lifelong passbook savings accounts. The middle class has been squeezed as never before, lacking the administration\u2019s romance of the poor and its crony-capitalism connections of the rich.<\/p>\n

Even with new taxes on top incomes, the end of the war in Iraq, sequestration, and a supposed recovery, the 2013 annual deficit will still near $700 billion \u2014 a bragging point for Obama, given that this is the first year of his administration that we did not borrow over $1 trillion. To the degree that Obama has made headway \u2014 the sequestration forcing cuts and reducing the 2013 budget deficit somewhat, or gas and oil production soaring on private lands \u2014 success has come despite his opposition, not because of his advocacy.<\/p>\n

Not since Richard Nixon have we seen such a record of scandal. The disclosures of wrong-doing and cover-ups now come so often that they become mind-numbing \u2014 Fast and Furious, Benghazi, and the IRS, AP, NSA, and ACA messes. After the president\u2019s flips and flops over Syria, confusion about Egypt, and leading from behind in Libya, no one believes him \u2014 which is why also that no one was surprised at home about the untruth about Obamacare. In such a context, misdeeds like the Pigford payouts or Solyndra do not even raise an eyebrow.<\/p>\n

Foreign policy is likewise in shambles. No one in the administration brags of \u201cleading from behind\u201d in Libya, or of \u201creset\u201d with Russia, or of \u201cred lines\u201d and \u201cgame changers\u201d in Syria. On most foreign policy issues, Obama is to the left of the current French socialist government. A Nobel Peace Prize laureate\u2019s legacy is trying to bypass the UN about Syria, exceeding the UN mandate in Libya, and now ignoring it with Iran.<\/p>\n

I know of no major Democrat figure who claims a foreign policy success for this administration \u2014 unless estrangement from Israel, or the courting of Islamists in Turkey and Egypt, or\u00a0open mic promises<\/a>\u00a0to go easy on Russia after the election count. The irony is that the more the Obama administration has courted our enemies \u2014 Venezuela, the Islamist Middle East, Iran \u2014 the more they have disliked us, as our appeasement earned contempt rather than appreciation of magnanimity. There is no longer an American-led West. Germany is becoming the world\u2019s fiscal arbitrator, France the Western bulwark against radical Islam, Japan the impediment to Chinese expansionism, Israel and the Persian Gulf the last chance\u00a0to stop an Iranian bomb<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Obama cabinet is the weakest in modern memory. Eric Holder was held in contempt of Congress. By his polarizing rhetoric (\u201cmy people,\u201d \u201ccowards,\u201d etc.), he has helped to set back racial relations a generation.\u00a0Kathleen Sebelius<\/a>\u00a0oversaw the most disastrous rollout of a federal program of the modern era. Chuck Hagel is becoming irrelevant at Defense.<\/p>\n

John Kerry at State will be known for his promise of an\u00a0\u201cunbelievably small\u201d<\/a>\u00a0bombing campaign to come against Syria \u2014 that in itself was explained by Obama as a non-pinprick. Hillary Clinton had declared Assad a \u201creformer,\u201d scoffed off Benghazi as \u201cwhat difference does it make?\u201d and tried to parlay \u201cBush did it\u201d into a foreign policy.<\/p>\n

Steven Chu proved a sort of idiot-savant at Energy, reminding us that Nobel Prize winners can lack even an iota\u00a0of common sense<\/a>. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano\u2019s chief task was finding ways to grant election-time amnesties without being caught at it, while inventing\u00a0adolescent euphemisms<\/a>\u00a0for terrorism.<\/p>\n

The less said about the quotes about a peaceful and secular Islamism from\u00a0James Clapper<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0John Brennan<\/a>\u00a0the better. Citigroup\u2019s\u00a0Peter Orszag<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Jack Lew<\/a>\u00a0were refutations of the Obama promises to end the revolving door between big money and big government.<\/p>\n

Lisa Jackson at EPA quietly left, after fabricating a fake email identity of\u00a0\u201cRichard Windsor.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Press Secretary Jay Carney has made Ron Ziegler\u2019s tenure appear veracious in comparison. Thomas Perez and Hilda Solis at Labor saw their job as the promotion of unionism at all costs.<\/p>\n

Obama, the self-described constitutional lawyer, has done more to endanger personal liberty and the rule of law than any president since FDR put Japanese-American citizens into camps. Associated Press reporters were monitored. The NSA tapped personal communications. The IRS\u00a0went after Obama\u2019s opponents<\/a>. An innocent video maker was jailed on trumped-up charges of parole violations after being falsely accused by the president and the secretary of State of inciting the Benghazi attacks. When a law was deemed inconvenient, Obama simply either overrode or ignored it, whether Obamacare\u2019s employer mandate or federal border enforcement statutes.<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s \u201csignature\u201d legislation was supposed to be Obamacare, a federal takeover of health care only dreamed of by past liberal presidents, but pushed through on a strictly partisan vote by the charisma of Barack Obama. The problem with the more than 2,000 pages of Obamacare \u2014 frontloaded two years ago with freebies \u2014 was not just that its web-based delivery system was inoperative, but that its entire concept of supposedly supplying superior insurance to more people at less cost was fiscally impossible, while its central assumption that young healthy people would be willing to pay more for health care that they would rarely use to subsidize older people who would pay less for more coverage was ridiculous.<\/p>\n

Is there an Obama legacy?<\/b><\/p>\n

In a way, yes. He has mesmerized the media in a manner entirely unknown in past presidencies. No matter the scandal or policy failure, it will be almost impossible for Obama\u2019s popularity to dip much below 40%. Yet even more importantly than hypnotizing a once-free press into\u00a0a Ministry of Truth<\/a>, Obama has redefined the scope and purpose of federal redistributive entitlements, turning them into the political means of creating a permanent dependent constituency.<\/p>\n

For the Democratic Party, Obama\u00a0has been a disaster<\/a>, discrediting the professed liberal commitment\u00a0to socialized medicine<\/a>,\u00a0civil liberties<\/a>, lead-from-behind foreign policy, Keynesian economics, and an open transparent government skeptical of\u00a0Wall Street big money<\/a>\u00a0and federal overreach. He also managed to pass almost no new initiatives with large Democratic majorities in the House and Senate in his first two years of governance, before losing the former in 2010 and perhaps the latter in 2014.<\/p>\n

Obama has been compared to almost every out-of-his-league figure in mythology (Phaethon at the reins of his father\u2019s out-of-control sun chariot, Icarus flying too high on frail waxen wings, Narcissus transfixed at a reflecting pool of his own image), cinema (Chauncey Gardiner of\u00a0Being There<\/a>,\u00a0<\/i>or Bill McKay of\u00a0The Candidate),\u00a0<\/i>or literature (Shakespeare\u2019s Hamlet or Orwell\u2019s pigs prancing on two legs). In that regard, the Obama presidency, to paraphrase Hillary Clinton, requires a suspension of disbelief, and a \u201cwhat difference does it make?\u201d at each new unfolding scandal.<\/p>\n

His tenure will be known as the Wilderness Years \u2014 nothing gained, much lost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0PJ Media\u00a0 Most two-term presidents leave some sort of legacy. Ronald Reagan won the Cold War. George W. Bush prevented another 9\/11, and constructed an anti-terrorism protocol that even his critical successor embraced and often expanded. Even our one-term presidents have achieved something. JFK got Soviet missiles out of Cuba. LBJ […]<\/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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[146,536,136],"tags":[12,42,1057,1055,88,40,901,1041,1052],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1KD","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":969,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/iran-1-0-2-0-3-0-4-0\/","url_meta":{"origin":6735,"position":0},"title":"Iran 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 14, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services On the campaign trail, presidential candidate Barack Obama once called for a \u201creset\u201d policy with Iran. Supposedly, the unpopularity of the Texan provocateur George W. Bush and his administration\u2019s inability to finesse \u201csoft power\u201d had needlessly alienated the Iranian theocracy. 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It would also seem to be something a concerned world community would be actively working to do. After all, the Sunni\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2007"","block_context":{"text":"October 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/october-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7117,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-new-obama-doctrine\/","url_meta":{"origin":6735,"position":3},"title":"A New Obama Doctrine?","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 18, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"With his presidency in tailspin, Carter radically changed course. Will Obama do the same? by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online\u00a0 By the beginning of 1980, Jimmy Carter was in big trouble. Almost everything he had said or done in foreign policy over the prior three years had failed \u2014\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "History"","block_context":{"text":"History","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/history\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1460,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-unbound\/","url_meta":{"origin":6735,"position":4},"title":"Obama Unbound","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 14, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Richard Nixon went to Red China with political impunity. Had a Democrat tried that, he would have been branded a Commie appeaser. To this day, liberals cannot conceive that during the two world wars, progressives like Woodrow Wilson, Earl Warren, and Franklin Delano\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Foreign Policy"","block_context":{"text":"Foreign Policy","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/foreign-policy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12218,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/trumps-chances-for-reelection-are-looking-better-and-better\/","url_meta":{"origin":6735,"position":5},"title":"Trump\u2019s Chances for Reelection Are Looking Better and Better","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 27, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Donald Trump\u00a0has at least five strong historical arguments for his reelection. One, he is an incumbent. Incumbent presidents have won 14 of 19 reelection bids since 1900. The few who lost did not enjoy positive approval ratings. In a Gallup poll from earlier this\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6735"}],"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=6735"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6737,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6735\/revisions\/6737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}