Later today–Citizen Obama
Farewell President Barack Hussein Obama.
We will never know how great your presidency could have been given the obstacles from the Republicans.
You were elected in the beginning of an economic downturn. Soon after you took the oath of office the economy was shedding over 600,000 jobs a month.
How bad was the panic? There was even talk of nationalizing the banks. There was talk of locking up the CEOs of companies that sold toxic financial instruments and wiped out workers’ savings while still paying themselves millions of dollars.
How quickly all these convulsions are forgotten in the era of Twitter.
You made the decision to bail the banks and the auto industry. With every step you faced recalcitrant Republicans. They had declared from the start that they would work hard to ensure that yours was a one-term presidency.
With no cooperation from Republicans you pushed through laws that helped inject billions of dollars to stimulate the economy. The banks and the auto industry survived and thrived. Companies began to hire again; eventually translating into 14 million new jobs under your administration.
Unemployment began to tick downwards. It’s now under 5%; African American unemployment remains abysmally high at two digits.
You fought against Republican opposition and some wavering Democrats and pushed through the Affordable Care Act. Even with the challenges it faces, over 17 million more Americans are now signed up for health insurance coverage through Obamacare.
The new Republican-controlled Congress has started the process of killing Obamacare. That’s easier said than done. Soon, they will discover it’s politically suicidal to deprive millions of Americans health insurance coverage just to spite you as a result of their vindictiveness.
Your domestic achievements would have been even much more solid had the Republicans not spent the 8 years undermining your presidency while trying to delegitimize you with the canard that you were born in Kenya.
They were so successful in creating such a toxic hyper-racialized environment that even one of their own — traditional Republicans — was not electable. The reactionary forces of bigotry unleashed with over-the-top personal attacks on you and your policies gave birth to the Trump presidency which starts today.
On Africa you were frankly disappointing. Your talk was great but the action was the opposite. In Ghana in 2009 you declared that the U.S. would stand with Africans who were fighting for democracy and against corruption and nepotism. These Africans risk their liberty and lives in order to eject tyrants — “big men” as you referred to them.
Yet your administration empowered with millions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money and weapons the two most ruthless dictators in Africa, Uganda’s Gen. Yoweri Museveni and Rwanda’s Gen. Paul Kagame.
These two unleashed their militaries multiple times against the people of Congo to plunder the country’s resources. An estimated 6 million Congolese have died as a result of the multiple wars.
Uganda by the time you took office had been
found liable for the crimes by the World Court and ordered to pay $10 billion in reparations. The International Criminal Court also launched an investigation which has been blocked.
Elsewhere in Africa, the war on Libya was a monumental disaster pushed aggressively by Hillary Clinton who believed ousting Muammar al-Quathafi would burnish her strong-on-defense credentials for her future presidential run, which, did not end well.
Quathafi was no democrat, but hardly the ogre your administration painted him to be, and he used Libya’s oil billions for the benefit of his people and the rest of Africa. He had also accepted the Africa Union plan to hold elections.
On the otherhand, a corrupt murderous dictator like Gen. Museveni, in power for 31 years now, is a U.S. ally. Now after the murder of Quathafi, Libya is a failed state, haven for various extremist groups, and an exporter of terror to other parts of Africa.
You will in the coming years look back and see Africa as your biggest failure in terms of where there could have been achievements.
You depart the White House with a very impressive 53% approval rating. This is because on the whole Americans know you are remarkably talented and gifted with superior intellect. Americans marvel at what you were able to accomplish even with McConnell, Cantor, Boehner, and Ryan saying “no” to everything you tried.
You also introduced grace and style to the White House with your beautiful family which endured racist abuse from true deplorables.
First Lady Michelle –the epitome of class and intelligence–is herself presidential material. The nation also watched as your little girls Malia and Sasha grew into lovely young ladies.
What a ride indeed.
With the wisdom of hindsight you will offer much to the nation and the world as Citizen Obama.
Fare thee well.
