Presidential Legacies

Presidents, especially two-termers, spend the last two years working very hard on their legacies. Sometimes, as in the case of Harding, Roosevelt and Kennedy, death gets in the way. Then, we are forced to look at the term as a whole and define that event, that moment, which eclipses all others.

For example, Harding had his Teapot Dome, Roosevelt is remembered for ending the Depression, though some say it was WWII which did that, and Kennedy is remembered for his successes with the Cuban Missile Crisis and his (late) support for the Civil Rights Movement.

Truman is remembered for his decision to drop "the bomb" in order to end WWII, Eisenhower is remembered for entrenching the Cold War as part of world history for almost 40 years, and Clinton is remembered both for his impeachment and for presiding over a robust economy, which in his last year, failed.

Johnson is remembered for escalating a war Kennedy was going to end, and also for the Voting Rights Act, civil rights legislation and that fiasco he called the Great Society. Nixon ended the war, opened the door to China and built the Great Detente with the Soviet Union. But he is also remembered for a constitutional crisis known as Watergate.

Ford is remembered for his WIN buttons and for his blanket pardon of Nixon. Carter is remembered for his great work in resolving the Egyptian-Israeli conflicts with the Camp David Accords but also for the Iranian Hostage Crisis. Reagan is remembered for his ability to reach down deep inside us to bring out that "feel good" feeling about ourselves and our Country and also for setting the stage to end the Cold War.

Bush I is remembered for closing the deal on the Reagan advances with the Soviets, watched The Wall come down and energized democracy in Eastern Europe. He also is remembered for leading the UN to do the right thing in Iraq and then blew his legacy with a failing economy from mid-1991 to the end of his presidency.

His son was destined to fix the economy he inherited when he was forced to respond to the greatest attack on US soil since Pearl Harbor.  He involved us in two wars which did not end before he left office and presided over the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression.

I have laid out for you how Presidents' legacies are created. There are those who will disagree with the fine points but in the scheme of legacies, this is fairly accurate.

So, now we come to Obama. He came into office facing a horrible economy, which he still hasn't fixed even though the unemployment rate is under 6%. It is that low because people have fallen off the eligible rolls to be permitted to continue to file for unemployment. He has, as a "Constitutional Law Professor" violated the Constitution worse than Nixon was ever able to devise during Watergate, while the Congress and the media stand by with their collective heads in the sand.

He has managed, using his "community organizer skillset", divided us into so many factions we are no longer united as Americans. He has done this with race, politics, and just this week, religion, by comparing crusaders to ISIS and trying to chastise us for it. This man is a hateful, jealous, spiteful little man who has the power of our most treasured office and a bully pulpit to spew his vitriol.

Trust me when I say this: unlike FDR, JFK, Reagan or Clinton, Obama has created a legacy for himself which in the years to come, will be defined as the most vile, the most contemptible period ever in American history. These first four men I just mentioned are some of the most revered people to ever hold the office, sins and all, by most Americans. 

When people mention Obama in five years or ten, we will hang our collective head in shame for having been so stupid and so blind for electing the most evil man to our highest office.  And then we must ask our descendants for their forgiveness for the country we leave them to try and fix.

That, my friends, is the Obama Era in America. Like Stalin in Russia or Hitler in Germany, he will have destroyed his country. And he will have done in in record time, in only eight years.

This will be a time that will never be discussed if it can be helped.