In a recent piece aptly titled Obama: The Fairy-Tale President?, John Feffer declared that in order to achieve his presidential ambitions, Obama 'made many a difficult bargain'. In the process he adds (like Goethe's Faust), '[Obama] auctioned off parts of his soul to different vested interests and, as a result, [has] disappointed many.'
For those on the left, Feffer notes his tenure didn't conform to their Disney[esque] understanding of U.S. politics, 'in which the fairy leftist waves a wand and all Americans... become Swedish socialists'. As for those on the right, many have dismissed the Obama tenure because it didn't tally with their Reaganesque understanding of American society, 'in which "gummint" shrivels up like a raisin in the sun leaving Americans free to choose, starve, and fire their semi-automatics'.
Yet it is Feffer's observations about the middle-ground demographic and their views of Obama's administration--and by logical extension, the man himself--that for this writer resonate most:
'[But] there are plenty of people in the middle who've grown cynical... because seven years is a long time to sustain hope and pray for change. This broad slice of the electorate expected peace, and they've gotten a lot of war. They hoped in the wake of the financial crisis for an economy geared to the 99 percent, and they've seen the raucous return of the rich. They expected a transformation of the way Washington does business, and they witnessed a continuation of business as usual.'
This latter observation I believe also is integral to any final summation of Obama, and it is one that should be a recurring consideration in assessing his legacy.
A Failure to Communicate (What We Have Here)
In a piece that sets out decrying the "groupthink" that prevails within the Obama administration and the "perception management" modus operandi that attends it, Robert Parry highlights a recent independent review/assessment of the White House's response to terrorism that he says 'cast[s] new doubt on the U.S. government's ability to serve as a credible voice against [ISIS] propaganda.' [See "Obama's Credibility Crisis", ConsortiumNews, Dec 6, 2015]
For Parry the problem goes deeper than Obama's failure to counter ISIS propagandising and provide a coherent, convincing alternative narrative. It seems clear the White House continues to get high on its own supply of Kool-Aid, much of it generously provided by the belligerent neoconservatives and the so-called liberal interventionists. This compounds the problem and widens the chasm between said problem and the advancement of any pragmatic solution. It also serves to widen--exponentially so one imagines--the credibility and integrity gaps.
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