The final act in the less than illustrious presidency of Barack Obama might well be that he is responsible for, for the second time, trashing the presidential ambitions of Hillary Clinton. It’s very nice that Michelle and Barack Obama are out on the campaign trail for Hillary Clinton. But she must be wondering these days what the hell Barack Obama was doing in appointing James Comey head of the FBI, the a Republican political shape-shifter from the Bush administration who has rolled over on her with disclosure of unspecified and un examined emails seized from the computer of Anthony Weiner the husband of Huma Abedin, Hillary’s assistant. If Clinton loses by a thin margin the blame could reasonably be the fundamental weakness of Barack Obama.
Much has already been said about how this disclosure violates FBI procedure and there should be more suspicion of Mr. Comey’s motives than of the seized emails, which cannot be of Mrs. Clinton’s authorship unless she had access to Weiner’s weiner-photo-filled hard drive. Supposedly there are over 650 thousand emails, so there should be at least half of them that are of Weiner’s dick. Obama’s stupid obsequiousness towards Republicans might well prove to be the “October surprise” that the Trump campaign has been praying for, or might at least have the effect of tanking some of the Democrat senate races.
Were that not enough I should also mention that Clinton is plagued in these final days of the campaign by another stupid Obama decision. By taking the single payer option off the table for consideration (another sop to the Republicans) he baked the insurance companies into the crazy Rube Goldberg contraption of “Obamacre.” Now, in the least propitious of times those skimming bookies of healthcare have provided Trump with priceless ammo by announcing rate increases in premiums, making a mockery of Obama’s “signature” legislation that Clinton has pledged to continue.
Readers of these pages over the past eight years already know of my disillusionment and disappointment with Barack Obama. While I admit that he has encountered the virulent racism that many of us thought his election had signaled the decline of, not only did he not turn out to be our new FDR, he has been a dupe who thought the could make nice with Republicans well beyond playing golf with John Boehner. Beginning with his decision to not have the DOJ consider criminal charges against the Bush-Cheney administration, he then retained most all of he Bush economic team that oversaw the economic meltdown of 2008. He then appointed Republican Robert Gates to oversee the Pentagon that carried forward most of the Bush wars, and established a massive surveillance apparatus upon the American people worthy of the KGB and Stasi, and continued Bush policies in everything from defense to education. We voted for a Democrat but mostly third Bush administration.
Obama himself likes to list his “achievements.” But his executive efforts mostly picked the low-hanging fruit (repeals of DADT, DOMA, women appointments to the Supreme Court) but never dealt with Guantanamo and basically expanded or continued (via the creation of drone wars) the Bush-Cheney wars. Domestically, he produced an under-funded and unimaginative economic policy that has resulted in a flaccid recovery that is fodder for the Trump candidacy. He has been prone to political grandstanding, such as the assassination of Osama bin Laden, someone who was operationally marginalized, sick and cowering in Pakistan. (Compare that decision with FDR’s D-Day, Truman’s A-Bomb decision, or JFK’s Cuban Missile Crisis.) For all of that “audacity of hope” business he has proven to be bold in rhetoric, but not clever, or inspired in thought or action, and blew most of his tenure bending over or sucking up to his opposition. He has managed to piss of leaders such as Putin and Netanyahu, but not to any noticeable policy effect. Could it be that Barack Obama thought it was his job to be the first Black man to be elected President of the United States? Because in the annals of presidential achievements that is likely all he will be celebrated for—that and possibly the election of Donald Trump as his successor.
There has been a character assassination campaign on Hillary Clinton almost from the beginning of her public life, punctuated by the escapades of her husband and his best friend, his penis, and now by a sociopathic weiner-flogger and failed congressman from Brooklyn. I was a Bernie supporter and I am not an unquestioning supporter of Hillary Clinton. If Obama’s stupid appointment has not finished her off I think she is likely to face a raging and vicious misogyny to equal or exceed the racism heaped on Barack Obama. But hope that her legacy will not be one of the compliant ass-kissing of Republicans of her predecessor. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” the proverb goes. There has been plenty of scorn; now let’s see some goddamned fury.