IN the new American era when the presidency is a daily reality show, it is sometimes tempting to shrug: every dispensation brings its own idiosyncrasies. In less than 30 days, a White House senior adviser, Kellyanne Conway, President Donald Trump’s campaign manager, gave the world a new expression called “alternative facts.” Although the election was won election with “alternative facts,” the world knows that “alternative facts” cannot be anything but falsehood. The standard seems set that in the Trump White House facts are of little value. Americans seem to be resigned to the fate of Trump supporters who take Trump seriously but not literally.
In the case of President Barack Obama, what you see is what you get. Eight years ago Obama announced in his Election Day acceptance speech that “change has come to America.” And he meant it. But he had no idea what awaited him. He was a dazzling figure. He was 42 but looked 26. Intellectually he was awesome. Ethically, he had no blemish. Morally, opposition research looked everywhere and turned up nothing — no love child, no aggrieved girlfriend, no scorned woman. Republicans made fun of his being a community organizer, the only job he had before going into politics. Sarah Palin, McCain’s running mate, had ridiculed the position, likening a community organizer to a small town mayor, the difference, she asserted, was that a small town mayor had real responsibilities. Everywhere he went, the world seemed to cherish him. Short of holding a rally at the famous Brandenburg Gate, more than 200,000 excited Germans went to see him.
He ran in the primaries as a peace candidate at a time the country was embroiled in two wars. Afghanistan, was the good war, Al Queda launched the September 11 massive terror attack on the US from Afghanistan. The second, Iraq, was a bad war. Before the shooting began, Obama had denounced it as a humble state senator in Illinois, before he won the US Senate seat. He called it a “dumb war,” at a time politicians were falling over themselves to be seen as patriotic for supporting it. He promised to end both wars if elected. That was his main mission. He would then provide healthcare for most Americans. It was found in 2008 that 45 million Americans had no access to a doctor because they could not afford it, in a country reputed to be the richest in the world.
Nothing had prepared him for the world’s financial melt-down. Nothing had prepared anyone, except the economics history books of 1929 on the First Great Depression. It was akin to perching on the edge of the cliff staring down the abyss. Obama confessed he did not panic only because he was too new to panic, not knowing the ramifications of the problem. But the facts were horrifying. Every week since his inauguration 100,000 Americans lost their homes, 800,000 citizens lost their jobs. He had to prepare an economic stimulus bill. The price tag was nearly $800 billion. How to get it passed by Congress became the next issue. Instead of inviting the Republicans as presidents do, he went to them on Capitol Hill. But the Republicans had hinted they would not only oppose the bill, they were going to oppose everything he proposed. Indeed the Majority Leader told his party caucus he would want to make Obama a one-term president. The stimulus bill eventually passed without a single Republican vote. Obama had staked his political capital in the rescue of the American economy. All he knew was that it was the right thing to do. It did not matter what it would cost him politically. And it cost him plenty.
Other problems mounted simultaneously and pressure piled upon pressures as an American icon, the biggest automobile company in the world, General Motors Corporation, was declared bankrupt. A week later Chrysler was collapsing as well. The collapse of the famous Lehman Brothers brought down the roof on the financial world creating a run on the banks and jeopardizing hundreds of other banks and financial institutions. Republicans could not care less if GM perished. But Obama swore he could not imagine an American industrial environment without General Motors. Loans had to be put together to save GM and Chrysler and, most important, the American International Group (AIG), the biggest insurance company in the world, whose collapse would have made the second great depression almost inevitable.
It was the era of the bail-outs and though it was so unpopular as a political measure and must be held accountable for the many reverses of the Democratic Party for many years, it was impossible not to do the bail-outs of those distressed companies, especially the mortgage companies and the banks. If the GM had unraveled, the most optimistic estimate is that nearly 8,000,000 jobs would have gone down with it. Indeed, at the time Obama was trying to save GM, Mitt Romney had suggested that GM should be allowed to go bankrupt and into liquidation, a statement he had to regret in 2012 when he became the Republican nominee contesting Obama’s re-election, and Obama had to remind Motown of the records.
Obama found that ending wars is even more intractable than starting one. In Iraq, a withdrawal agreement had been signed by his predecessor, President George W. Bush, with the Iraqis with schedules. He ensured that those schedules were kept and that the troops were coming home. He had a different scenario in Afghanistan where in his strategy session with his generals he refused to accept their plan and time-table for the withdrawal. Indeed, the generals were rooting for reinforcement whereas the president asked for a withdrawal plan. He patiently worked with them and kept up pressure until they gave him an acceptable plan. The result was that where in 2009 there were 175,000 US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, in 2016, only 15,000 are still in those theatres.
All stratagems to get him involved in any land war failed. He was insistent that the Arab world was tired of American solutions, especially when led by American troops. He stubbornly refused intervention in Syria not only because, he said, there was no vital American interests involved, he felt the Syrian issue is better solved politically. The result was that even when the so-called red line was crossed by President Bashar Al-Assad by the use of chemical weapons, he refused to bomb Syria, but got the Russians to compel Assad to surrender all his chemical weapons. He thus secured the same objective without firing a shot. It was not for nothing that he received the Nobel Peace Prize earlier in his tenure.