Tag Archives: Barack Obama

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Try this on before griping about anti-Trump protests

This picture popped into my Facebook news feed this evening, so I thought I’d share it here.

Interesting, yes? And hateful, agreed? Disgusting too, correct? Take a good look as well at the image of the effigies being burned; do you notice the crucifix on the wall of the building in the background? Hmmm.

The montage illustrates how some folks greeted the election of President Obama in 2009. The new president sought to become a “post-racial” leader. He didn’t succeed in that effort.

As he said in his farewell speech on Jan. 10, it likely was an unrealistic goal. So it turned out to be.

The protests against Donald Trump’s ascent to the presidency? They seem downright civil. Sure, I heard about Madonna’s ridiculous and frightening threat to “burn down the White House”; the Material Girl said she spoke metaphorically and that her comment was taken out of context. Sure thing, lady.

Back to my point.

How about the Trumpkins around the country stop complaining about the rough treatment their guy is getting from the rest of the country that didn’t vote for him?

We live in an angry time.

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Next up: Supreme Court nomination

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U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has thrown down the gauntlet: He is prepared to fight to keep the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court unfilled for the next year, maybe longer.

Don’t do it, Mr. Leader.

The president is going to nominate someone to fill the vacancy created nearly a year ago by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to replace Scalia, but Senate Republicans blocked the nomination in a brazen display of petty partisanship by refusing to give Judge Garland a hearing and a vote.

They were as wrong and petty as could be.

We now have a new president and Donald J. Trump is as entitled to make his selection as Barack Obama was entitled. Thus, the Senate should proceed with confirmation hearings and then a vote.

I’ve noted many times already on this blog about my belief in presidential prerogative. Yes, the Constitution also grants the Senate the right to “advise and consent” to whomever the president nominates.

Schumer, though, should at least wait to see who the president nominates before deciding whether to block an appointment.

I agree with Schumer and Senate Democrats on this point: Trump should select a mainstream candidate. The president need not pick a fight with Democrats just for the sake of picking a fight. If he presents a nominee who is considered to come from the right-wing fringe of the judicial/political spectrum, then perhaps the Senate has grounds to protest the nomination.

Blocking a Trump nominee just for the sake of blocking someone — or to exact revenge — is no more acceptable than the idiotic effort to block an Obama nominee.

national news, political news

How do ex-presidents cope with it all?

Try putting yourself into a spot that most of us — at least everyone within my sphere of friends and acquaintances — will never experience.

That would be transferring oneself instantaneously from being the most powerful human being on Earth to being just another ordinary guy.

My mind does tend to wander into strange places at times. This is one of them.

After the election of a new president, I try to transport myself into the shoes of the individual who goes from being Somebody to a relative Nobody. How does that feel? Is there a palpable, discernible sense of great weight being lifted from one’s shoulders? Is there a temptation to thumb one’s nose at the successor or offer a snarky “Take it away, pal”?

Or is there a temptation to worry oneself silly over this or that crisis?

Barack Obama might be feeling a little weird today as he continues his transition to husband, father, son-in-law, friend, next-door neighbor.

MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews — who in a previous life served as a speechwriter for President Carter and was on hand to watch his boss hand it over to President Reagan in 1981 — offered an observation the other day I found so very fascinating.

He said the Secret Service presidential detail keeps its eyes riveted on the commander in chief and his immediate surroundings at all times. On Inauguration Day, their attention shifts dramatically at the instant the chief justice of the Supreme Court says, “Congratulations, Mr. President” to the new head of state.

It’s a ritual repeated with utmost precision and without the slightest impact on the event that’s taking place. It happened this past Friday as Barack Obama passed the baton to Donald Trump.

We’ve been focused, quite naturally, on the new president’s activities — and the protests that have greeted his arrival on center stage.

For reasons, though, that have little to do with my affection for the most recent former president, I will hope he adjusts as smoothly to a “normal life” as he did when he became the focus of billions of us living on Planet Earth.

national news, political news

Trump does battle with … ‘W’?

Yochi Dreazen has offered an interesting analysis on Donald J. Trump’s inaugural speech in an essay written for Vox.com.

It is this: The real target of the new president’s barbs and brickbats wasn’t his immediate predecessor, Barack H. Obama; rather, Dreazen writes, it was the guy who served before Obama — George W. Bush.

Here’s the essay:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-real-target-of-trump%e2%80%99s-inaugural-speech-wasn%e2%80%99t-barack-obama-it-was-george-w-bush/ar-AAm4gLu?li=BBnb7Kz

When you think about it, the notion makes sense.

Trump didn’t mention the Affordable Care Act, or the Iran nuclear arms deal or the return of diplomatic relations with Cuba in his inaugural speech. Republicans all across the land have been critical of all three policy issues.

His target instead, if you parse the president’s 16-minute inaugural speech, was the amount of money we’ve spend on foreign wars while neglecting our roads, bridges, airports and rail lines.

Dreazen writes: “Take Trump’s comments about how the US had wrongly ‘spent trillions of dollars overseas while America’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay.’ The president who launched those costly wars — and who was responsible for the bulk of the estimated $5 trillion that the US has spent in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the bulk of the 8,000 American military deaths in the two countries — was Bush, not Obama.

So, this seems to portend an interesting dynamic as the new president prepares to craft his agenda and present it to a Congress controlled in both chambers by Republicans.

GOP lawmakers do not believe we’ve wasted our effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nor do they hold the Bush administration in the same highly negative light that Trump cast on it while he campaigned for the presidency. He called the Iraq War a “disaster,” a “huge mistake.”

President Bush — along with his father, Bush 41 and brother Jeb, the former Florida governor and 2016 GOP presidential candidate — returned the favor by refusing to campaign for Trump. None of them attended the GOP convention in Cleveland. They sat on their hands.

I’m going to venture not too far out on the limb here by suggesting that the Bushes are held in considerably greater regard by establishment congressional Republicans than the 45th president.

How will this play as Trump has to work with Republicans who control the flow of legislation and laws? Let’s all hold our breath … and wait.

national news, political news

It’s done; now it’s time to get used to a new era

The deed is done.

Barack Obama handed over the reins of power to Donald J. Trump. The former president and his family jetted off to California. The new president took up some business in the Oval Office before dancing the night away with his wife.

I’ll make yet another confession: I’m not yet ready to embrace fully the notion that Trump is actually, really and truly, certifiably the commander in chief of the world’s greatest military machine.

Yes, I know he is president. I know he won an election that seemingly everyone on the planet thought he’d lose bigly.

I’ve mentioned already that I’ve voted in 12 presidential elections. Five times my candidate has won; seven times he has lost. I know what it’s like to be on the short end of the vote count. Heck, the first election I voted in — that would be 1972 — my guy lost 49 states.

However, in every case I’ve been able to accept fully the outcome and move on … until now.

This one feels strangely different. It has something to do with what I still believe about the president’s unfitness for the office he now occupies. I get that not everyone agrees with me. Many of my friends here in the Texas Panhandle voted for Trump. They’re still my friends.

Still, I ask you to hang with me. I’m likely to come around.

Eventually.

national news

POTUS goes to war with those around him

Get ready for this: I am about to give the new president of the United States a backhanded compliment for showing some serious brass while delivering his inaugural speech.

Donald J. Trump, standing on a podium surrounded by many men and women with whom he’ll work — the folks who serve in Congress — threw down the gauntlet. He said the era of doing nothing in Congress has ended; he said Washington prospered while the rest of the nation suffered; he accused lawmakers essentially of enriching themselves while the Ordinary Joe was sucking wind.

Did the folks on the podium feel the burn?

More’n likely.

However, if this was his effort to bridge the divide that has split the country, I fear it might have widened it — particularly among the individuals who serve in Congress. Indeed, the divide between Capitol Hill and the White House might be the most gaping of all.

Republicans made it clear when Barack Obama became president that they had no intention of cooperating with him. Now it’s Democrats’ turn to exact revenge on a Republican president.

And the president today perhaps gave them more ammo to lock ‘n load as they prepare to do battle with the guy who’s just dissed them so grandly … and in front of so many people.

Given that most of out here in the proverbial peanut gallery don’t really know about Trump’s ideology, we are left to wonder if his declaration of war against Congress is going to perpetuate the gridlock that gripped the federal government for much of the past eight years.

Here’s my fear: If Democrats succeed in blocking whatever Trump wants to do, there could be collateral damage inflicted by Republicans who launch their own counterattack.

Or … lawmakers on both sides of the aisle could get angry enough at Trump’s fighting words to stop government dead in its tracks.

Then what?

national news

So much for unity at this inaugural

I have a message to the new president of the United States, if only he receives it.

The campaign is over, Donald John Trump. You won. You’re the president. You promised to unify the country. You could have started when you delivered the inaugural speech. Sadly — in my mind — you didn’t.

What the country heard from the president was a recitation of the themes that won over enough voters to elect him president.

He painted yet again a dark, forbidding portrait of the greatest nation the world has ever known. He talked about job losses, a dispirited military establishment, fear of radical Islamic terrorists, a general feeling that the nation has gone to hell in a hurry.

This wasn’t your typical inaugural speech. It contained little of the high-minded hope that presidents bring to their high office.

Here is the speech in its entirety. Take a look and judge for yourself:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/full-speech-president-donald-trump-inaugural-address/ar-AAm3VY0

Believe it or not, I was hoping there would be at least a glimmer of recognition of the progress that President Barack Obama made during his eight years in office: dramatic reduction in the jobless rate; revival of the auto industry; huge reduction in the annual federal budget deficit; success in the war against terrorists — including the killing of Osama bin Laden.

None of that came forward.

Interestingly as well was the lack of mention of the dreaded Affordable Care Act, which Trump has vowed to “repeal and replace.” Nor was there a mention of the Iranian nuclear deal that Obama negotiated to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

He talked instead of restoring jobs, bringing back manufacturing jobs. Here’s a news flash, Mr. President: Those jobs fell victim to automation, not poorly negotiated trade deals; good luck if you think manufacturers are going to forgo robots for human beings.

I’m going to wish the president well — believe it or not. If he succeeds in all that he wants, more power to him, and to the country he now leads.

Failure, as the saying goes, is not an option.

If only he could have lifted our spirits just a little bit.

national news

Hoping for a beautiful sunrise tomorrow

A lot of aspects of American life likely could change sometime this afternoon.

At 11 a.m. (CST), Donald John Trump will become the 45th president of the United States. Barack Hussein Obama will exit the world stage and jet off to Palm Springs, Calif., for some well-deserved R&R with his family.

The new president will attend a parade, shake some hands, then venture into the Oval Office.

Then — he says — he will sign some executive orders, which he is entitled to do.

Will these orders undo some of the many positive aspects of Barack Obama’s presidency? Trump, after all, has called the current president a “disaster.” He’s said his policies are “stupid.”

Trump, who calls himself a “smart person” with a “good mind,” and someone who will surround himself with the “best minds” and a team that has highest collective IQ of any in the history in the history of the republic, will get to work to make his mark on the presidency.

What that entails, at this moment — on Inauguration Morning — remains virtually anyone’s guess.

I am going to hold out hope for one thing to occur. It will be that the sun will set tonight and we’ll all be able to awake Saturday to yet another beautiful sunrise.

I am going to pray that the new president is successful in whatever plans he has laid out for the next four years. The consequences of failure are too grim to ponder.

national news, political news

Transition from Somebody to Nobody

I don’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about these things, but the thought has crossed my mind: What is it like for someone to transition from being the most powerful man in the world to, oh, just another Ordinary Joe?

That is what awaits Barack H. Obama, his wife Michelle and their daughters Malia and Sasha.

At noon Friday, President Obama becomes just another guy, a citizen who will get to drive his own car, open his own doors, sleep in if he wants and relax with his family.

He follows a tradition set by dozens of other men who’ve had the good fortune to survive their presidencies and transition to a new life … that resembles the way it used to be before they became the planet’s most powerful figure.

I don’t know how President Obama feels about all this. His body language, though, tells me he’s ready to get out of Dodge. He’ll fly to California on that big blue jet that’s called Air Force One when the president is on board. He’ll play some golf, eat some relaxing meals with his wife and daughters, read, write and relax.

It might be arguably a little more of an adjustment for Barack Obama than he’ll be willing to admit. You see, I’ve long noticed one thing about this president: From the very beginning of his two terms, he seemed to own the office he occupied.

Why do I say that? I was struck for eight years how he would use the first-person singular pronoun when referencing the government he led. He would mention “my national security team,” “my vice president,” “my attorney general.”

I once wrote that the government didn’t belong to the president. It belongs to us — you and me. The president merely is our hired hand elected to the job by virtue of getting more electoral votes than anyone else.

In just a few hours, the 44th president will surrender that immense power to the 45th president. Then he becomes an average guy — so to speak.

Barack Obama is likely to prove me wrong by adjusting just fine to his new life. At least I hope he does.

Well done, Mr. President.

national news

No scandals, Mr. Fund … none!

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Believe it or not, I expected better from John Fund, the noted conservative columnist and Fox News Channel contributor/pundit.

He said President Obama has told a final “whopper” by declaring his administration is finishing its work in Washington without suffering a major “scandal.”

Fund disagrees, as he writes in an essay attached to this post. Here it is:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/01/19/john-fund-obama-has-one-last-whopper-for-america-as-exits-white-house.html

He calls Obama’s “fast and furious” deal that resulted in drug cartels getting weapons from the Justice Department; he notes the Benghazi massacre in which four Americans died in a firefight with Islamic terrorists; he mentions the IRS targeting certain political groups for intense tax scrutiny.

Fund writes: “Obama has, in fact, presided over some of the worst scandals of any president in recent decades.”

All of those matters were deplorable. They weren’t illegal. They might have been careless, perhaps reckless. They didn’t break any laws.

Scandal? In the strictest sense, President Clinton lying to a grand jury — under oath — about his relationship with the White House intern qualifies as a scandal. He broke a law, which served as the pretext for the House of Representatives to impeach the 42nd president. One can argue the merits of the impeachment about whether lawmakers were truly interested in protecting the law; or whether they were motivated by the salacious aspect of the whole ordeal.

The issues cited by Fund do not, in my mind, constitute “scandalous” behavior.

Therefore, I will stand behind the president’s assertion that his administration served the country in a scandal-free environment.

Of course, one man’s mere controversy is another’s scandal. Fine. If that’s the case, then bring it on!