Every administration hits rough
waters.
Virtually
every president gets on a roll at some time during his administration,
generally early on. And while he’s on that roll, every day is a wedding. He
gets bills passed, international relations go his way, and people love him. It
seems he can’t make a bad move.
It
happened to Lyndon B. Johnson, whose early years gave promise of giving us the
greatest presidency of modern times. And it happened to Richard Nixon, who,
much to the consternation of his enemies, seemed to get stronger as his years
in office mounted up.
Eventually,
the roll ends. Whether it’s Watergate, Monica Lewinsky, the Iran-Contra
scandal, the Vietnam War turning sour, or the Iranian hostage crisis — every
administration hits rough waters.
The
president goes into a slide and things are never the same again. Suddenly, he
can’t do anything right. Every day brings a new headline that lands like a
punch to the stomach.
President
Barack Obama is not on a roll.
His good times may not have been spectacular, but he did win re-election by a wide margin and things were looking up. That seems a distant memory now.
If
he had nothing more than the disastrous Edward Snowden affair to deal with, it
would be enough.
Not
only did the youngish intelligence worker reveal that we are building the
capability of spying on every man, woman, and child in the nation, the
documents he released showed we are also spying on our best friends and allies.
Doesn’t
everybody do that, you ask? Perhaps, but to have it revealed to the global
community via a leak from our most secretive government agency takes
“embarrassing” to a new level.
And
to have Snowden flee to Russia, of all places, allowing Vladimir (The Thug)
Putin to withhold granting asylum unless Snowden promised to stop revealing
U.S. intelligence secrets…well, that’s an irony almost beyond endurance.
We
have, in short, become a laughingstock in the international community. But
that’s not all.
The
so-called “Arab Spring,” which we welcomed as the healthy introduction of
democracy into autocratic Middle Eastern and North African countries, has gone
completely off the rails.
The
popular uprising in Syria has degenerated into what amounts to a full-scale
civil war. We now face the choice of getting involved in it — which we
definitely do not want — or looking like a pitiful helpless giant.
Egypt
had its own popular uprising against the military strongman (and our ally)
Hosni Mubarak, replacing him with an elected Islamic leader.
We
weren’t altogether happy about that, but we made approving noises in support of
democracy. Within a year, the Islamists had screwed things up so badly that
they inspired another popular uprising, followed by a military coup. Naturally,
people want Obama to do something about it. They just don’t say what.
If
that weren’t enough, the major countries of Europe are threatening to break off important trade negotiations with us because of our spying on
everybody.
On
the home front, the conservative Supreme Court has just made it easier for
states to suppress voting by the poor and people of color.
Obstructionist House Republicans are treating the immigration bill, on which
Obama has spent so much of his political capital, as their favorite hostage.
I
have an old and dear friend, a woman only slightly to the left of Lenin, who
recently wrote, “Obama is the worst president we’ve ever had.”
I
also have a rabid conservative friend. He thinks Dick Cheney is the greatest
vice-president we’ve ever had, and he agrees with her.
And,
don’t forget, it won’t be long before Obama has to convince Congress that it
should raise the debt ceiling so the nation can pay for the things it’s bought
recently. Good luck to him with that.
No,
Obama is definitely not on a roll.
OtherWords columnist Donald Kaul lives in Ann
Arbor, Michigan. OtherWords.org