I Miss Barack Obama--Not Really

I Miss Barack Obama is the title of David Brooks's dripping ode to our nation's 44th but first African-American president which appeared in the Feb. 9, 2016 New York Times Opinion Pages.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/09/opinion/i-miss-barack-obama.html?_r=0)

While he attempts to establish credibility and fair mindedness by stating that he "disagrees with a lot of Obama's policy decisions," Brooks goes on to pen the kind of swooning love letter that you might hope your daughter would receive from a lovestruck beau.

Like Brooks, I will attempt to establish credibility by stating that my counterpoint is not personal.  In fact, Mr. Obama and I would likely get along swimmingly.  We have a great deal in common and would have a lot to talk about.  We both have South Side of Chicago and University of Chicago roots.  We were both reared largely by grandparents.  We both have an affinity for pickup basketball and golf.  At one time in life, I even shared the vice of being a closet cigarette smoker.  We would likely get on great on the golf course and for a few beers after.  As Chris Christie would say, "It's just business."

Brooks starts with the general decline in the behavioral standards in public life, and his assertion that Obama represents a departure from that trend.  True, Obama did not have a tryst with a young intern and lie about it like our 42nd president did, but his mendacity was of a decidedly more pernicious kind--- it was about policy.  The sales pitch used to peddle the ACA- his signature legislative accomplishment--was riddled with untruths, from "if you like your plan, you can keep your plan (which won the biggest Pinnochio in 2013," to "the average family will save $2,500 in premiums" (premiums have skyrocketed in most states), to "it won't add a single dime to the deficit" (it does-many dimes), to "illegal immigrants will not get subsidies," (they received $750 million worth).  More dangerously, Obama claimed that only a "handful" of Gitmo releasees returned to jihadism.   That is absolutely false.  The recidivism rate is about 30% and in his eagerness to clear the detention center (based on his wholly unsubstantiated claim that it aids the recruitment of jihadists), recently released an Al Qaeda bomb maker.  Add to these flat out deceptions, Fast and Furious, the IRS/Lois Lerner scandal, Benghazi, and Hillary Clinton's ongoing email investigation, we see that Brooks's assertion that "he and his staff have generally behaved with basic rectitude" looks pretty flimsy.  His rhetoric has been atrocious toward his own countrymen.  After calling for more "civility in discourse," he attacked Republicans as "crazies" and "extremists" and  regularly mocked political opponents ("the 80's are calling and want their foreign policy back," "Are they afraid of widows and orphans?") rather than engage in open debate on the facts.

His second assertion-- of Obama's basic humanity is also terribly flawed.  For that assertion he cites his visit to the mosque and that he would be great on a charity board.  The facts, though, show someone quite different.   After a journalist was beheaded, he dashed off to yuck it up with a round of golf.  After our ambassador and 3 others were murdered at Benghazi, he immediately zipped off to a fundraiser and to meet with Beyonce.  His actual responses in a number of instances belied a lack of empathy. We did not see real emotion from him until he issued executive orders on gun control.  But worse, his misguided policies caused or exacerbated real human suffering.  His incoherence and waffling in Syria and his abrupt exodus from Iraq facilitated the expansion of ISIS and the refugee crisis that is overwhelming Europe.  Worse, if you take the position that the Iraq War was a mistake, Obama doubled down by taking out another secular dictator and leaving a vaccuum.  Under the premise that he was preventing genocide, deposed Qaddafi in Libya, now an ISIS stronghold.   He didn't prevent genocide.  He enabled it.  Closer to home, he generalized the proposition that white cops were singling out black youths and shooting unarmed innocents from a couple of situations (one where the officer was exonerated).  The "Ferguson Effect"--police taking a much more passive approach-- has resulted in a spike in violent crime in U.S. cities. Both here and abroad, the "humanity" of Obama policies has been ultimately devastating to humanity.

Third, Brooks cites Obama's sound decision-making process.  You mean the decision-making process that led him to jump through hoops to do deals with mullahs, yet uses a pen and a phone to govern because he can't get deals done with members of the opposing party?  Or, the decision making process that has led the court system to stymie the Constitutional law professor's overreach on carbon fuels, immigration, and NLRB appointments?  Our Constitution is designed to force some sort of consensus around big policy matters.  Obama has done more end runs than the old Green Bay Packer offense.  His decision making on domestic matters often looks more like that of a Latin American dictator than that of an American president.   In military matters, he dithers and then withdraws.  He failed to leave behind sufficient troop strength to maintain a stable Iraq.  He telegraphed his timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan. His generals and admirals had to hound him to assert navigation rights in the South China Sea vis-a-vis China.  And most egregiously, drew a red line with Assad, then did nothing.   He even managed to alienate the Canadians by his stalling  and ultimate rejection of the Keystone pipeline.  His decision making style seems to be "dictatorial at home, vacillating and accommodating abroad."

Brooks also cites Obama's "resilient sense of optimism" as a reason to miss him and accuses Republicans of "wallowing in the pornography of pessimism." Unfortunately, only 28% of the country currently believes that the country is on the right track.  Again, the facts on the ground say something very different.  We have had the worst postwar recovery on record, an abysmal labor participation rate, a middle class that is getting crushed, and no wage growth.  We may, in fact, be headed into another financial crisis and recession.  Businesses aren't investing and are being suffocated by the Obama flurry of regulations.  Obama has virtually killed the coal industry through unilateral regulatory directives.  Dodd Frank has buried community banks and completely halted new bank charters.  As one bank executive confided to me, "Everyone is just f--ng tired." Abroad, we have been pushed out of the Middle East by a resurgent Russia, and Iran has openly humiliated our navy.  North Korea and Iran fire missiles in blatant violation of UN resolutions and there is no real response.  Even Europe is endangered by the abrupt withdrawal of American moral and military leadership. "There's a shared assessment that the European security architecture is falling apart in many ways", observes Camille Grad, director of the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris.   Obama may have a resilient sense of optimism, but he is pretty much alone in that view.

Brooks gushed that "Obama radiates an ethos of integrity, humanity, good manners and elegance that I am beginning to miss."  What Obama is likely to leave behind is an economy weighed by debt, taxes and a nightmarish thicket of labyrinthian regulatory schemes and super charged regulatory agencies.  It's an America in which the hottest job is now "compliance officer" not "inventor" or "entrepreneur."  

Most damning is Obama's blown opportunities.  The Obama appointed Simpson Bowles group did good work and showed promise of a truly bipartisan solution to our debt and deficit problem.  Obama failed to champion the proposal and budget negotiations deteriorated into bitterly partisan fights and the counterproductive sequestration (which Obama blamed on Republicans).  He came into office promising a "different kind of politics," and instead brought Chicago style political thuggery.

And most harmful was in the area of race relations.  Our country was big enough to overcome slavery, segregation, and a racist past to elect an African American president.  Although I did not support Obama, at the time of his election I thought, "Well, at least we will have completely exorcised that demon."  Instead of putting the demons to rest, he (and his appointees) resurrected them and brought them back to life.  Eric Holder bluntly asserted, "We are a nation of cowards," (no, thousands of men died for your freedom and people marched and we passed laws to rid ourselves of racism and segregation).  Obama himself declared, "Racism is in our D.N.A." (no, actually entrepreneurship, tolerance and a can-do attitude are in our D.N.A., Mr. President).  The false narratives of "Hands Up Don't Shoot" and giving "room to destroy" in Baltimore caused racial friction that we had not seen since the death of MLK.  Instead of advocating healing and togetherness, Obama picked at an old scab and promoted divisiveness and made assumptions about people as if they were stuck in amber in 1952.  

Finally, and most importantly, I will not miss Barack Obama because of his lack of appreciation for what America is all about.  And I believe a significant factor in Donald Trump's rise has been the need of Americans to feel that we are special---because we are.  Donald Trump talks about winning.  Great Americans from George Patton to Vince Lombardi talked about winning.  Ronald Reagan often referred to John Winthrop's "city upon a hill."  Abraham Lincoln referred to America as the "last best hope on earth."  Even rock star Bono said, "Ireland is a great country.  But it is a country.  America is an idea."  In contrast, beginning with his Cairo speech and throughout his presidency, Obama denigrated and apologized for the U.S.   "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism, and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism," he proclaimed.  We're special.  Just like everyone else.  Talking about his Middle Eastern policy, he pondered, "This isn't about America winning."  He derisively referred to much of middle America--the backbone of the country--as people that "bitterly cling to their guns and religion," and went on to allude to their inherent racism.  An American president MUST be concerned first and foremost about America winning.  That's the job.   An American President MUST believe in this country's primacy as a force for good in the world, as a bastion of liberty, and an unwavering opponent of tyranny and guardian of human rights.   We are not perfect.  We are still the "American experiment"  and are still a work in progress, but Americans need to be told that they have a special place in the world and a special duty.  

Mr. Brooks and I attended the same undergraduate school at about the same time (although I do not remember him).   We have such starkly different views on President Obama, his integrity, his humanity, and his leadership that it's hard to believe that Brooks and I are assessing the same leader. I can only hope that history will view him as an aberration following the financial crisis and that our next commander in chief can restore the American spirit here and abroad.