The Curious Presidency of Barack Obama |
The Curious Presidency of Barack Obama
Political Insight
Volume 7, Number 1 (April 2016)
pages 8-11
DOI: 10.1177/2041905816637452
James D. Boys, Associate Professor of International Political Studies
Richmond University, London, United Kingdom
After two terms in the White House, Barack Obama’s Presidency has entered its final year. James D. Boys assesses his record in office and finds an historic US President who leaves behind a nation more divided than ever.
In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald published the incredible tale of a man who effectively lives his life in reverse: born old, he grows younger as each subsequent year passes. In many ways, Fitzgerald’s Benjamin Button encapsulates the Presidency of Barack Obama, a President who has lived his Presidency in reverse.
Tradition holds that a president enters office with as much political capital as he will ever have and that over the course of his presidency (be that one or two terms) he expends it to such an extent that by the end of his tenure, he is a spent force, or rather, a lame duck. Tradition also suggests that as his time in office ends, a period of reflection begins, during which he is lauded for his achievements.
This has not happened, however, in the case of Barack Obama. Instead, he arrived in office garnered in plaudits, but struggled to achieve concrete goals or to find his presidential voice until late in his second term, when he suddenly hit his stride in terms of foreign policy achievements and his willingness to champion gun control efforts. Passage of ‘Obamacare’, the signature achievement of his first term, was an important exception to his narrative, but Obama’s most definable achievements have come in his second term when he was beyond the will of the electorate and when Vice President Biden had chosen not to seek office. Both aspects reveal telling factors about the Obama Presidency which betray his bold and optimistic clarion call for change that carried him to office in the election of 2008…
Read the entire article here.
Tags: James Boys, James D. Boys, Political Insight