Isn’t it time to let the obsessive Obama critique go? We all have enough to deal with today but if you insist on regressing, you need to really go back to Include Bush. He’s getting quite the free pass when the comparisons are to today’s disasters. And even then, differences aside, Obama and Bush were decent and dignified men. Today’s President is neither.
1058
Go back to Bush? Who are you kidding! Go all the way back to “King Ronnie”. He was the start of the American decline in wages and everything else.
63
wrong, trump is so much better than obama and bush.
4
It is not time to let the critique of corporadems - like Obama and Clinton - go. They still control the party and as long as they do, demagogues like Trump will keep winning elections.
3
Shame on you, Maureen Dowd. I wish I was as good as Mr. and Mrs. Obama, and could go high while you go low, but, alas, my Irish temper is yelling me that it wouldn't have any effect on you anyway. Get off your bloody high horse, and stop being nasty. Mr. Obama is not the condescending snob you are portraying him as, and he is ten times the human being you will *ever* be.
6
Ms. Dowd, thank you for this article. You've captured perfectly my view of Obama (originally an enthusiastic supporter), his arrogance and unwillingness to fight, and my anger at the fact that he forced Hillary on us. Where would we be now if Biden hadn't been pushed out of the race, or Sanders had been allowed to compete without an insider/establishment finger on the scale? I believe we'd be Trumpless.
43
There is absolutely no way--none--to prove that either Sanders or Biden would have been able to do better than Hillary did by winning the popular vote by close to 3 million ballots while losing in the Electoral College. What Bernie would have gained--possibly--from millenials might well have been lost in votes from black Americans that went missing (94% of African-American women voted for Hillary, 80% of black). Not surprisingly, black turnout dropped and it's a good bet that if Bernie had been the candidate, it would have dropped further. Hillary also had the majority among other minorities. Bernie also was never really attacked except in the mildest of ways by Hillary's campaign and was ignored for the most part by Trump's, and Russian attempts were to discredit Hillary among Bernie supporters rather than to support Bernie against Trump. There's no evidence that Biden enjoyed much enthusiasm among many Democrats at all and had he been nominated, it's likely he would have faced a number of the same negatives as Hillary.
Is it possible that Bernie or Biden could have been prevailed when Hillary did not? Of course. But there is no way at all to determine whether or not that's true. Personally, I don't think it is, but none of us will ever really know. A guarantee of "Trumplessness" is absurd.
39
Biden pushed out? He was recovering from the emotionally devastating death of his son Beau, and was not eager to run for President at that time.
And why do you think Sanders and Biden could have beaten Trump? Sanders would have lost the middle much quicker than Clinton and if you talk about being too close to Obama, you couldn't get closer than the VP. This revisionist history is not helpful.
1
Trump would have lost the election.
1
Maureen Dowd, always happy to gnaw away at the slightest imperfections of the only sane party in American politics, the Democrats, while Frankenstein Republicans massacre reason, logic, bipartisanship, the common good and democracy itself into a sewer of immorality, amorality, greed and fundamentalist darkness.
So Barack Obama wasn't perfect, and neither was Hillary....what an unforgivable sin, Maureen !
But guess what, they were reasonable, they were logical, they could speak in coherent compound sentences, they respected the separation of powers and they believed - rightly so - that government can be a force for good.
Contrast that with the Party of Stupid-Treason-God-Guns-and-Greed Making Robber Barons Great Again who suppress voters and votes like there's no political tomorrow -- which there won't be for them after November 6 2018 -- and one really wishes Maureen would simply see a psychoanalyst instead of constantly playing her Obama-Clinton psycho-bongo drums in the New York Times.
Barack Obama is a spectacular gentleman and a scholar and he made a fine President who rescued the country from nihilistic Republican marauders.
Hillary Clinton was extremely competent would have made a superb President; that's why she won the popular vote 48.2% to 46.1%.
It is only through the right-wing magic of years of orchestrated voter suppression and Kremlin management that the Moron-In-Chief managed to overthrow Barackian democracy for the fetid Trump Toilet.
Grow up, Maureen.
2025
Hillary was flawed. Trump is toxic. See the difference?
@San Ta
If if "superb" is a bit much, "vastly better than the current occupant" would be fair, IMHO.
1
It's a real talent to judge talent before the performance. Maybe you should apply for the Mets' GM.
1
What a complete load of dribble and nonsense. Obama the fascist. Obama who was pretty and thought he was far to pretty and brilliant to behave and live by the rules established in the constitution. Obama who spied on the opposition to do whatever he could to cover his crimes and make sure a less presentable but just as corrupt felon would inhabit the White House. Obama who was the best looking liar we have had since JFK. Obama who had his wet nurse VJ live with him and lead every thought. Obama was too good only for the corrupt and vapid minds of the progressive left and fascists who he tried to lead.
12
I held my nose and voted for Hillary, and would do so again. In many ways I identified with her: her father's background and my father's. But, it truly troubled me, that she was the entitled, lady in waiting. I am/was no Bernie bro. Quite simply, We were not given a choice. So, many votes, in those 3 states went to Jill Stein. I am offended, each moment of the day by Trump; however, the Dems missed the fact that entitled Hillary, could not win. White men, barely surviving an intelligent black president, were not going to, now have a women running the show. Both racism and misogyny were at work. Maybe, Joe Biden would have made a difference. Anyone, other than the entitled Hillary; but yes, I would vote for her again: the only alternative to man child.
4
Most 'good people' possess the Achilles heel of 'self doubt' - the almost inevitable by-product of being too intelligent and reflective. They seem to forget that a leader needs to know how to amass power, keep it, demonstrate a willingness to use it and conspicuously use it to reward and to punish.
Obama had a different (intellectual) definition of leadership. Trump is a master at it. He is bending not just the branches of the government, but an entire country and even the world to his will. How unbelievably amazing is that.
31
Why do we insist on calling Obama the nations first "African-American" President? He was not. He was the nations first bi-racial President.
This was pointed out repeatedly by the British press during the recent "royal wedding." They made it perfectly clear that Meghan Markle is not black--she is bi-racial. Just like Obama.
Facts matter.
5
Well, good to know that Obama views himself as a deity sent to earth to save lesser beings. What he doesn't acknowledge or won't admit is that a lot of white Americans were sending virtue signals when they voted for him. If he wasn't Black -- how many would have voted for a candidate with virtually no record and no experience over a McCain? Or HRC? Or Romney.
Obama had one signal accomplishment and that was the ACA and who knows if that was really good or not. It certainly hasn't keep the promise of keeping your doc or driving down medical and insurance costs -- they've continued to go up.
His foreign policy actions were failures. He let ISIS originate, he got out of IRAQ when he shouldn't have, he ceded the Middle East to Russia -- and let Russia take over Crimea and some extent Ukraine without a peep. He signed a ridiculous deal with Iran and coughed up zillions. He then let the Russians do their thing in 2016 and didn't do anything -- until HRC lost and he realized his "legacy" was headed for the garbage bin of history.
Yes, he gives go tele-prompted speeches. Without the tele prompter he mumbles and say "ah ah ah ah" about a zillion times.
He ignored NK.
And the Paris Accord? A joke. People will say that the Repubs thwarted him at every turn --- but the truth is he started out having both houses of congress and lost them. He couldn't pull his political moment together.
When it's all said and done -- Trump will be viewed as much better.
91
Let me make sure I understand this.
We now have a "president" who jokes about sexually assaulting women. Who has had his "handlers" pay off and/or threaten countless numbers of them. A man who mocks those with disabilities. A man who is proud of his racism. A man who proclaimed that neo-Nazis and the KKK are some very fine people.
A man who believes journalists who do not always flatter him should be jailed. A man whose documented lies now run in the thousands, since he took office. A man who has shredded our nation's respect and international standing in one short year. A man who has singlehandedly alienated nearly every U.S. ally we have, alliances that it has taken our nation decades to develop.
A man who believes the Justice Department exists for his personal use. And a man, now, per his own legal counsel's writing, who believes he answers to literally no one in this country.
And Maureen Dowd is upset about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton?
For those of us like myself, citizens who are ethnic minorities in this country, we pray every day that Trump doesn't make good on his threats to strip us of our civil rights or intern us. We've been the victims of hate crimes that have skyrocketed since Trump took office. Even those of us born in this country know we now have no place in Trump's America.
And yet Maureen Dowd is permitted to have her little verbal tantrum in, of all places, the New York Times. Somebody isn't woke.....
2849
Yes - silly NYT. Don't you know that we're not entitled to free speech anymore? Only 'woke' free speech is permissible.
47
Do you not get it? We have the terrible President we do in large part because of the actions that Maureen Dowd describes in her column. What is hard to understand about that?
69
Absolutely ridiculous. Nobody is stripping anyone of their civil rights.
39
For the most part, President Obama squandered his historic election. He displayed unrelenting arrogance, affirmed by an adoring media. But his control of the domestic press did not go beyond our borders. Foreign leaders and events kept exposing him: ISIS, Benghazi, Putin and Russia, Libya, the Syrian calamity, Israel and Iran. None of these were affected by his propaganda machine. Had his worshipful admirers in the MSM done their job, Obama would have been a better and more effective president. President Trump actually should be grateful for the criticism from the "Fake News". It is making him a better president. Obama put his faith in super-controlling an adoring press. This political strategy did not serve him well. By the way, could you ever imagine Mr. Obama engaging in the kind of give and take that President Trump displayed yesterday after the North Korean departure from the White House? It didn't happen once during his entire eight-year presidency. Obama's "controllers" never, ever would have allowed it. That basic distrust of the American people cost all of us, but especially him.
274
Bizarre analysis
118
When I was a kid, a great uncle of mine broke the bank at the roulette table. The next day he lost it all and more. The problem with being a gambler isn't when you win: it's when you lose. Obama didn't gamble. Trump does, ad he wins a lot and loses a lot (as we know from his bankruptcies). At the stakes he's playing, the U.S. can't afford to lose.
80
I agree with your comment. Obama, sometimes was too cautious and displayed elements of naivety. But your comment is just a tiny bit of his eight years. Americans are used to their POTUS being loud, bold, assertive and sometimes bullish. Obama was the opposite and that came across
negatively. But when you claim he did not show the give-and-take gesture displayed by Trump, please remember, it is still early days to call the North Korea issue a success and Trump has alienated allies by his trade tariffs. Did you forget the give-and-take position Obama took regarding Iran? Obama played down his successes, a contrast to Trump. We wait and see whether Trump's political strategy would turn out good.
53
One criticism I've always had about President Obama is that he held the American people in too high regard, that he saw us as smarter, fairer and kinder than we are.
I found it inspiring that he believed, as I once did, that "the better angels of our nature" would prevail but I abandoned that hope long ago.
Republicans prey on the worst in us and weaponize it against our higher ideals to gain power. It began with RR and has culminated with a lethal weaponized DT.
Ms. Dowd has never gotten over the day he invited her to join him in the conference room on Air Force One and lit into her about her false equivalency, vindictive, black hole journalism.
This column says more about her than him. After 15 months of the ineptitude and tyranny of Trump, her only impulse is to blame his infamy on President Obama. Sad.
3020
I suspect it was Obama’s public take-down of Ms. Dowd, at the 2013 White House Correspondents Dinner, that still fuels her ire.
"Maureen Dowd said I could solve all my problems if I were just more like Michael Douglas in 'The American President.' And I know Michael is here tonight. Michael, what’s your secret, man? Could it be that you were an actor in an Aaron Sorkin liberal fantasy? Might that have something to do with it?"
1438
@Mary Scott: Too bad I didn't read your comment before posting my own. It says what I wanted to say but far more eloquently and incisively.
204
@stu freeman: Thank you, Stu. We shared the same thoughts but you condensed them into one sentence, quite a feat.
I realize that you can't get over the fact that the Hag Hillary and Billy Hornydog Clinton will never be President and an illegal shadow president ever. Maybe you could talk with Bill Clinton and he could poke a finger in the corner of his eye for a crocodile tear and tell you in his best fake trembling voice; "I feel your pain!"
As For President Obama. People who expected the election of President Barack Obama to lead to racial healing and a post-racial society. They failed to take account of the political reality for a race hustler that racial healing and a post-racial society is not in his interest because Black votes matter. Instead he was constantly promoting fear, anger and resentments among blacks — and, if possible, paranoia — serves his political interest. Barack Obama has mastered the art of keeping black voters aroused while keeping white voters soothed — thanks in part to the gullibility of much of the public, who mistake geniality and glib rhetoric for honesty and good will.
5
He was too good for you and the Republican party, Maureen. He was far better than you deserve and he was great for the rest of us. He was a real president...warts and all. He was far, far better than fake president Trump and all his warts.
104
Talk about the unmitigable arrogance.
Like Trump or not, Trump is not leaving anyone behind like Obama did.
Obama, was all hat and no cattle.
79
Excuse me while I go throw up....BAAAARRF!
5
I miss you, President Obama
Amazingly Awesome doesn’t even begin to describe you
74
I”ll sure take Obama over the current disaster in the Oval Office.
52
Condescending, over-the-hill white woman (yes, she got the lit prize for wallowing the national fascination decades ago consensual relations involving a president, cigars and a dress with semen) lays out the case for hating Obama. He was better than we were. I don't ever remember feeling that he thought so.
But clearly, Old Mo feels there may be a way to work this angle.
You go girl. That old 'Come Hither' photo is not working.
65
That this unabashedly sexist comment was "liked" by so many shows us that hidden misogyny is alive and well. Exactly who is the readership here? Frightening.
Let’s not forget that Hillary couldn’t even get into a limousine without almost passing out. Now she needs two aides to walk down a few stairs and sports winter coats and scarves in 90 degree weather. And what is that bulge on her back?
12
Why don’t you just suck Obama’s cock? What a disgusting stoke Obama’s cock oped
1
“Maybe we pushed too far,” the president continued. “Maybe people just want to fall back into their tribe.”
This should be no surprise. The evolution of our species from Homo africanus , Homo erectus , Homo habilis , Homo sapiens did not emphasize the development of Critical Thinking genes. Just the opposite happened. Their offspring had to heed their elders in order to learn how to survive. If they didn`t , they didn`t survive. So it is in our DNA to absorb the culture/biases that we are raised/steeped in. Now we have a Never-Vote-Dem tribe that as Trump said would still vote for him if he shot someone on 5th Ave (or grabbed their p*^#y).
It is also the reason that 46% Americans Believe In Creationism and deny Evolution according To Latest Gallup Poll http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/americans-believe-in-creationism.
16
I hope I can do this--copy and paste my own reply to another comment??
I don't think we should forget that this detached elitist started out as a community organizer on the streets of Chicago. President Obama's elitism came with integrity, commitment to ethical values and to his family, with the kind of slow deliberation that serious matters deserve, and with a lot of just plain good taste and elegance. So what if he wasn't a glad-hander like Bill Clinton, or the first president who won because he looked good on television, John Kennedy, or our real media celebs, Reagan and Trump? I don't want a good old boy or a movie star for president. I want someone smarter, wiser, more thoughtful, less melodramatic than I am running the country and making the big decisions. Obama made some terrible mistakes, of course he did. I wonder what kind of president he would have been if the Republicans hadn't fought him viciously on every single point. Neither Obama nor Hillary Clinton is a good politician, but given the choice, I'd do again just what I did in 2016--cast my vote for arrogant, over-confident, smart, competent HRC. She might run a terrible campaign, but she would have been awfully good at running the country. And her record on the rights of women and children speaks for itself.
319
This confirms what I've long felt about Maureen Dowd; she has never understood Barack Obama and attributes qualities to him that I don't believe exist. I've never felt that her appraisal of him was fair or warranted. It's almost as if she sat next to him in elementary school and interpreted his reserve and good grades as pride, and with prejudice, by which I mean personality not societal.
330
Truer words were never spoken. Amen, Maureen!
38
I have never been a big fan of Ms Dowd. Too much snark.
Reading these comments, apparently I am not alone. She seems to get equally strong reactions from both the left and the right.
Her past obsession with Hillary used to remind me of one of the mean girls from high school who had been slighted by the overly earnest class valedictorian and had the need to take her down a notch to feel relevant.
She uses snark and sarcasm to make her points which some on the left don’t appreciate because they are often leveled at figures on the left and many on the right react to when they take them literally.
Doesn’t seem to be a lot of middle ground in the comments here. I was surprised at the volume of comments from the right - a lot more than you typically see from the NYT readership.
Whatever you think about Ms Dowd, she does seem to be able to provoke a reaction. Maybe more reaction than thoughtful discussion.
67
Blaming Obama for the ignorance and malaise of the American people is a typical conservative argument. Never take responsibility for your own actions when you can blame someone else is their motto.
88
When Dowd is in rapturous praise, it still sounds critical. That is who she is. It requires a little interpretting. Obviously, Obama WAS too good for us. But few humans are rotten enough to deserve Trump.
56
ACA / Obamacare or whatever you want to call it, but don’t call it progress. The U.S. was founded on the notion of Liberty (as in Statue of) and freedom from kings and autocrats. Despite all the simple-minded sweet words used to describe this law, it is a form of collectivism, which is reversion towards the tribalism that much of the world suffers from.
What Obama and the Left “gave” us was a stark illustration of its impulse to control, but at rock bottom it was the profound need to feel good about themselves – striking a blow on behalf the downtrodden, etc. etc.
24
So Maureen believes that Obama was too good for us. Also he was ahead of his time to make the changes that were needed to advance his agenda that would be in everyone's best interest; according to this egotistical narcissistic man who never accomplished anything but to get elected to political office. The far left feel that only governmental leaders know what is good for you and me. GET OVER IT!
21
The idol always has feet of clay, they just never realize it of themselves.
36
Obama's fabric is woven from Alinsky, Chomsky, Rev. Wright - a rogue's gallery of professional malcontents. Professional Takers. Never a productive day in their lives, unless saddling up for free handouts counts - which it doesn't. Why do you think he never got anything productive done. O'care did nothing to stem the tide of outrageous health care cost increases. He was a kid playing in a sandbox he was handed - didn't even work in the Senate. Chicago is quite nearly the last place in the US I would ever live. Maybe only Baltimore is worse. Decades of mismanagement.
50
Maureen Dowd used her gift of snark in this column to once again throw shade on both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton did have a platform and campaigned on issues. It is people like Dowd who reduced her to a candidate whose turn it was to run for President . Never mind that a woman running for President was historic. President Obama is the polar opposite of the under investigation from day one criminal who acts like a dictator and is destroying our democratic institutions one by one every day. Discounting the Russian interference in the election coupled with the trump campaign actively working with them, and the fact that Clinton won the popular vote by almost 3 million, Dowd’s column simply makes m blood boil!
109
I long for the America I knew just 2 short years ago when truth, integrity, compassion and competence meant something in the White House.
Trump’s lying, corruption, narcissism and gross incompetence has done and continues to do great damage to our precious democracy.
246
Where will all the saints come from for public office? And he or she who is without sin should cast the first stone! There are no perfect people among us!
I miss Obama who was not perfect and will not miss Trump.
And a suggestion for the NYT and other media. Stop showing red and blue states and only show them as purple states which they are.
66
Maureen Dowd continues to write that Joe Biden did not run for President in 2016 because he was pushed aside by Barack Obama. This is in contrast to Joe Biden's own explanation that he didn't run because of the death of his son Beau from cancer, and the effect it had on him and his family.
Ms. Dowd may have some information we don't, but her effort to undermine Barack Obama by repeating this story also undercuts Joe Biden's reputation as a straight shooter. And the vice-president's honesty with voters, and his abilty to connect with them by sharing his personal story, is an essential part of his appeal if decides to run for president in 2020.
Like many other Times' readers, I
get frustrated with another well-written, but snide, column from Maureen Dowd about a fundamentally decent person who happens to be a politician. She rips apart people like Barack Obama for minor transgressions, which sets up a false equivalence when she criticizes Donald Trump. If Ms. Dowd saved her worst insults for the man who is trying to dismantle our democratic institutions, we'd all be cheering her on instead of telling her that she helped elect him.
131
Not only was he disappointed by the primitive tribalism of us poor dumb Americans, he could not believe the British did not quiver and shake when he told them they would go to the end of the cue if they voted for Brexit. The pro-Brexit team could not have asked for a better gift from heaven.
54
The biggest problem Mrs Clinton had was that she remained Mrs Clinton.
It may be she loves the guy, enough that she forgave him, but getting caught in his utterly stupid and childish need for conquest paved the way for the serial transgressor who now serves as our President.
Mr Trump, like many men, was excused as a boy just being a boy while Mrs Clinton was not excused for being the questionably forgiving wife.
12
Obama’s greatest (and only) accomplishment is the complete and total destruction of the Democratic Party
71
We have an all out assault on the institutions of government of the United States and the First Amendment of the Constitution every single day by trump and all maureen can write about are the human failings of President Obama (as she sees them)! Pathetic.
94
Plenty of us saw it coming, but what we didn't see coming was the FBI covering up its Chump treason investigation while spouting that email investigation nonsense along with russia-Arab-Chinese intervention and media false equivalency lying.
63
I'd love to have Barack Obama back. He inherited a mess and did a great job with it.
I don't understand why Maureen Dowd is nitpicking at this stage.
100
Clinton won the popular vote by quite a bit. The system that ignores that gave us the loser.
76
Russia and its nurturing of racism and division in America being totally embraced by the republican party is a better explanation for the puppet.
Ignore it and advance his cause.
45
Hillary was ordered to be exonerated nefore anyone even got close to interviewing her. The thousands of subpoenaed documents that she destroyed proved intent to cheat the law - thank goodness the proggressive Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card still plays.
But id Barack the Fekless Ideologue hadn'r been such an economic failure, he would have seen Hillary elected president.
At least Mr. Obama can go to sleep tonight knowing he is why she lost.
Even after the dozen serious scandals,
all the secrecy,
the refusal to cooperate with federal judges,
the weaponization of half-a-dozen federal agencies, and
the millions spent to keep federal information secret from the Congress and us,
had he managed even one year with the minimum 3% DDP growth that every other president managed, the most corrupt Cabinet Secretary in a century would probably have still won the White House.
18
Biden would have won. BERNIE would have won! Their message was the inequality/rigged system thing which Dems usually win on. "Because that's what they (bankers) were paying" never too much...
So what are many Dem nabobs offering this election year? The Economy, stupid? No...the Russia Treason!
Not much of a secret strategy there, so what do GOPs do to defuse that? Well...they could start with the obvious, commission a serious stats thing and go back to show, while Dems decry less than a hundred thousand votes switching, that the ( strategically invented) charge of Russian collusion actually COST Trump millions of votes, as middle of the road Republicans, and independents, stayed home, left the Prez slot blank or voted for the guy who was supposed to win Utah.
Figure the GOP to begin this sort of counter in last of August and muddy waters enough that Dems only have a ten seat advantage in the House (very manageable with enough selective pork) and lose 2 in Senate...
Way to go, X2...
27
With Obama (and with what could have been Hillary), you have two people whose main thought is "How can government be shaped to give things to people." With Trump, the only real business person among the three, you have someone who really understands that getting America on the move means getting government off the necks of businesses and their employees. Both Obama and Hillary talked at us, Trump talks with us. Get ready for a Trump landslide in 2020, and for the Republicans keeping control of the House and Senate this year.
35
Once again Dowd can't resist giving vent to her weird vendetta against Hillary Clinton, who may not have oodles of charm to spare, but who is a good person and who was an excellent senator and secretary of state. Hillary also most certainly had an economic message, although it got lost in the media brouhaha over emails and in the personal attacks that Dowd, the rabid political Right, and the Russians helped to push. Instead of regretting her part in putting Trump into the Oval Office, Dowd wants to cast blame on Obama which is quite a stretch. Given that thanks in large part to the Russians we now have Trump bent on destroying everything good that Obama accomplished it would seem that Dowd might finally see fit to aim her arrows where the real evil resides.
322
Yes of course, let's blame President Obama for the Trump Administration. Oh wait, no, let's not just blame him, let's disparage him for daring to wonder if racist sensibilities are still to prevalent for the average American to accept a black President, and perhaps things will be different in 10-20 more years. Shame on HIM and HIS arrogance for stating the obvious.
48
Obama was good, indeed, very good, but not perfect.
HRC was just a mistake. But what was the choice? Bernie Sanders? And I like Bernie Sanders.
Elizabeth Warren? Really? But why?
The Democratic Voters stayed home, as compared to voting for HRC. Trump won.
There is also an aspect of inevitability in all this, of a reaction to Obama, in the eyes of many, and of him trying to get what they (unhappy white people) thought of as special treatment for not-very-productive Black people. For those unhappy white people Trump IS the proper remedy for that nonsense.
Trump is truly horrible, as I see it, truly an ugly and disgraceful human being, and yet something made millions of otherwise reasonable people rise up and vote for him. Is Obama partly to blame? Surely there is no denying that, but still, there's a lot more to it as well.
11
Yikes! The Cobra bites herself. On a weekend where Donald Trump leaks a memo making the case for miltary dictatorship, Dowd decides take a path well worn by her.
Its not time for national opinion writers to go to their safe place.
52
The NY Times actually elected Donald Trump. Their haughty but highly confident projections of 90% + certitude of HRC’s election certainly repressed voter turnout in a cohort notoriously hard to turn out in anything but a perceived closely-contested race. Thus the NY Times’s institutionalized insouciance delivered him the razor thin electoral college margins. Hubris has a price.
88
"Where were the next Barack Obamas? Obama had never been about party building. He was the man alone in the arena." So it was his responsibility to present us with a new leader that's good for us? Not ours to inform ourselves and use our moral compass to deny a proven charlatan and bully into the most important job we have?
41
Why do liberals have the constant need to rewrite history? Obama was the worst president in US history, that is the hard truth liberals need to accept. Until liberals accept that, they will constantly whine and push their hate, and continue to be a minority party.
33
Obama was "too good for us" only in his eyes and a few close followers. Even the Blacks began to realize he wasn't in their court - but only his own. Clinton is a spin-off, only someone to carry on his legacy, nothing more. When arrogance overcomes commitment to the people, and the dialog is always negative - apologizing for America, reliving slavery - especially when he and Michelle were out of Country finally left most of the voters cold. Clinton is another story - her loss was Karma.
53
What arrogance from a man with no resume. Eastwood was correct, just an empty chair.
29
The Democratic Party was wiped out during Obama's tenure, thanks, in large part, to Obama.
33
Obama was mostly talk. If it weren't for Valerie, even in the eyes of the Dems, he would have been useless. He was lazy and full of himself.
A rue example of a lazy man with nor experience and no common sense.
26
Like Fox News Maureen just can't stop re-treading the same schtick about Hillary. Two years into the Trump Administration, this all that she can bluster about - not Puerto Rico, not health care, not even the missing Melania. In Maureen's defense, however, it is summer.
31
The truth is, he didn't amount to that much. He was a good-looking Harvard guy with a dark skin who had the knack of not upsetting most white voters and allowing many to feel morally superior by voting for him. But he was also a man with an exaggerated opinion of himself and an arrogant manner and a disinclination to work hard at the job. The best presidents knew their limitations and hired the smartest people they could. Not Obama. He surrounded himself with mostly second-rate staff that didn't challenge the view he had of himself. His failed performance--yes, he had tough opposition but that is no excuse--and his stupid and self-serving backing of Hillary brought us Trump. Not much of a legacy to be proud of.
32
The leftist donkeys here seem to be a little detached from reality. Obama was naive and made mistakes. Some of this was because of his staffing and advisors. Hillary was detested and hated by anybody outside of the coastal bubble worlds. Hillary pushed others out of the way by locking up all the big donors. Then she cheated Bernie out of the nomination and the DNC looked the other way.
34
A show on computer science had a clip of Obama with Eric Schmidt of Google. Schmidt asked Obama about the best way to sort 32 billion numbers. After the laughter died down, Obama said he wouldn't use "bubble sort." Schmidt asked, "Who told him that?"
Can anyone imagine Trump having ANY conversation with Eric Schmidt?
54
This is some serious messiah worship. It is sickeningly sweet and sticky which makes it very hard to get yourself clean and free again. Get a puppy, please.
11
The house is on fire and Ms. Dowd castigates its previous occupant for being too perfect? You've got to be kidding.
59
"What if we were wrong in being so right? What if we were too good for these people?" Just us deplorable out here Mr. Arrogant President.
19
"Rhodes says that weeks after the election, he warned Obama that a narrative was developing that they didn’t do enough about the Russians and fake news."
“And do you think,” Obama replied, “that the type of people reading that stuff were going to listen to me?”
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Listen to the man who laughed at Mitt Romney, when Romney said the Russians were one of the biggest problems facing America?
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“Maybe we pushed too far,” the president continued. “Maybe people just want to fall back into their tribe.”
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The man who set race relations back 30 years in America with his divisive statements like "it could have been"
Come on Maureen. You can do better.
15
I have to say, I have been disappointed to see how often that the most recommended comments posted in response to Ms. Dowd's columns are now tribe-over-truth complaints rehashing her supposed breach of faith in having the temerity to point out obvious shortcomings in the Democratic strategy and candidates in the 2016 presidential election.
Disheartening because I expect more from New York Times readers. Maddening because many Bernie supporters, who apparently would have rather won the nomination than the election, never batted an eye when tarring candidate Clinton personal attacks on her character, or trotting out old GOP attack lines. These were probably more damaging than similar Republican efforts, as they were aimed at people who might actually vote for her.
Trump wasn't elected because Maureen Dowd failed to flatter Clinton by pointing out a few unpleasant truths in her columns. He was elected because of equivocating Democratic voters who failed to understand that the choice on the table was stark, and binary.
Come November 9, that precious "conscience vote" or abstention and $5 will have bought you a latte at Starbucks.
23
Every morning when I open my laptop it plays the YouTube video Obama Wins! Dancing in the Streets November 4, 2008 and it makes my day. When I see Obama bumper stickers still on cars I smile and think that was great. When I traveled with my job to foreign countries they would always start the business meeting with how lucky America was to have President Obama. Time and history will vindicate the Obama legacy as a moment when America answered with its better angels' call. No President Obama wasn't wrong but you Ms. Dowd are another story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v4qq8w9Usw
42
A favorite Dowd. Thank you.
12
Nothing is too good for the likes of liberals, and that's largely what they got from Obama. Other than his touted ACA forced down our throats with its inherent impurities. As a personality, sanguine he is not. More of a smiling phlegmatic, and a fine reader of teleprompters stuffed with someone else's words, he spent most of his 8 years counting liberal angels on the head of a pin. He brought us much hope, but never delivered what we hoped of him. Saddest was his failure to engage and encourage more young black males to choose a life of doing instead of getting. He could have been a role model extraordinaire. What he will be remembered for will not be his overflowing "goodness," but his phlegmatic inability to do more goodness for all of us. His bathos endorsement of Clinton as "Best Ever" told us all he wasn't nearly as smart as he thought his was.
27
Nice job MD. This is the same 'ain't I clever in my writing about Obama.' I suppose if you are the kind of person who makes it all about yourself, you will see others that way, but this was never Obama's mindset. Talk about arrogance! Who is MD writing for, in all of these subtle points about Obama over the years? Does she believe she wrote for the believed disaffected that Trump hustled? Please. One of Obama's greatest assets, was a partner who would help him keep his feet firmly on the ground, while his head searched for the clouds. We all need to see what we did to bring about Trump. Not getting Obama, and letting propaganda be thrown at him, is one major factor. I think MD has to own some of this.
46
During the Obama presidency, I used the phrase "my president" with pride and joy. During Bush I & II I referred to each as "the president" Now, it's "that man in the oval office".....
29
Yes, that right. Blame Barrack Obama for not getting out there and selling his ideas against a viscous, right-wing Republican cabal that attacked him every night on Fox News. A secret Muslim? Born in Kenya? Supporting terrorists?
He was far too decent for Americans, the fault does not like with Democrats or Hillary Clinton. It lies with Republicans willing to spread lies and half truths, working with Russian troll farms, hacking Democratic emails, and embrace a man who thinks of women as mere sex objects.
We are living in a time where reality seems not to far from the dystopian world of "The Handmaid's Tale." If Mike Pence rises to power, it will be.
50
Hey Maureen, what exactly did Obama do in eight years that was good for our Country?
19
Why is ANYONE listening to / working for / pomoting Ben RHODES as his echo chamber? Why wasn't that mentioned in the article? Or the fact that I cling to my Bible and my guns, (you know, those pesky first and second amendments); that Obama identified all Republicans as the enemy (Why would you folks vote for the enemy); that Obama did not think Iran was even hostile (despite the daily "death to America chants"); or that at least one half of my friends are deplorable. Hmmm, maybe, had these been reported AT ALL by the fishbowl NYT, folks might have a better opinion of their reporting and opinions... SMH
19
Obama now lies in the dustbin of history. Relegated to filling the Netflix database with more useless documentary trash.
A sad ending to a man who showed so much promise in 2008.
25
The patented Dowd sneer in tis piece is a sinking reminder of just how the jaded punditocracy greased the skids for Trump. All of this that's happening to our country is thanks to sneering, lazy media voices like this.
Obama was the best of us. Trump is the worst. No need to obfuscate or sneer.
75
Maureen Dowd seems to miss the point on this one. Her caustic humor is attacking the wrong person for the wrong reasons.
Does she remember Mitch McConnell and his vow to never pass any bill Obama presents? Does she forget that racism is still alive and well in the US???
She is off-base, and should dig deeper
45
Ah, here we are again, the Maureen we all remember, who complained ceaselessly about Obama and did her best to tear him down for eight solid years. Let it go, Mo. He was certainly too good for you, after all. But he's not president now. An absolutely corrupt wannabe oligarch is in power now, and you helped put him there. He is destroying America. Congrats, Maureen.
59
Well, Maureen, thank you for coming and first, let me tell you you're very talented and will do great things in this business.
But for the part in 'Mean Girls'...I'm thinking we're going in a different direction. We're looking for someone...younger...
19
I read this article and comments and think where were these people. Left to his own devises Obama would have driven this country and the world into the ground.
19
It was not Trump or even Hillary who decimated the Democratic Party between 2009 and 2016.
19
I'm not sure why this column was written, but it is instructive to understanding our current divisive environment. A commenter stated President Obama was the most corrupt president in history. Where did that come from? Examples please. I know many trump supporters believe Obama worsened race relations. How? By being black? Rather than getting any credit for improving the economy after the great recession, his detractors say he made it worse.
I don't understand what/who drove this excessively negative view of the Obama years, beyond the inability of many to accept a black man as their leader. But the same who/what is responsible for the election of our first authoritarian president, who is so divisive and corrupt that it makes President Obama and anyone who proceeded him look like a saint.
40
Mr. Obama's comments are an excellent insight into progressive politics in general. The elites are so much better than the masses that we should just sit back and let them run or government, our economy, our lives in general; after all, we of the great unwashed are too stupid, foolish, or deplorable to ever be able to run them ourselves.
Progressivism is the antithesis of democracy; in a democracy the government does what the majority of the people want while under progressivism the government does what the intellectual elite wants. If the progressive agenda is so correct, let them convince the majority to agree with it rather than imposing it upon us as mandates from on high.
24
We have Trump because Hillary was too busy collecting gold from the wealthiest Democrats to bother spending time and resources in the states that she should have won. Obama was like the statue of The Thinker, too lofty to bother with the people in the states the Democrats should have won. Trump is evil, Hillary was just a terrible candidate. Unfortunately, the Clintons still control much of the Democratic Party and that control may keep the GOP, the Party of Evil, in power for a long time. Obama and Hillary adoration will not win 2018 for the Democrats, a focus on the everyday needs and problems of the average person might. I fear the Democrats have learned little from 2016, and that inability to learn will mean that our children and grandchildren will pay a terrible price.
22
"We just weren’t ready for his amazing awesomeness."
Sometimes your world-class, state-of-the-art snarkiness just WORKS, Maureen.
Spot on.
Barack needs to be reminded from time to time that, without him, Donald J. Trump couldn't have been elected...I doubt that Obama's ego permits him to recognize the irony involved.
24
Unfortunately President Obama wasn’t remotely prepared for prime time and neither was Ben Rhodes......Rhodes fed the Presidents ego more than anything else. Now we have someone in the White House that of course has no business being there.
6
Ms Dowd, why are you insisting on insidiously impugning President Obama? Do you not realize that half of this country are suffering now in so many ways because of the lack of ethics and moral compasses rampant in this administration? All you are doing is giving pro-Trump readers more reasons to deny the utter corruption of this man now using up space in the People's House. You are exacerbating not assuaging the nativism, bigotry, racism, hypocritical evangelicalism, vitriol, and, well, hate in our society. I don't understand your purpose and agenda. Your columns often grieve my inner soul. And as a woman, I have to question if you care about the rest of us. Because by criticizing President Obama and his understanding that we are equal in every way to our male counterparts, you are encouraging misogyny and sexual exploitation.
41
"Obama did not like persuading people to do what they didn’t want to do. " Yes, I think that was Obama's big mistake.
Obama was no drama, and Trump is all drama.
The new media demands daily drama, and Obama was clueless.
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I hope that Democrats can wise up and find the drama they need to get back in the game and win the presidency with gutsy moves.
7
If Obama was just too good for us as is being suggested - too arrogant, too elitist - then Trump is just about right, just about what we deserve.
24
"Pushed aside the loyal Vice President" I bristle at that statement. That is simply untrue -- Get your facts straight. Joe Biden chose not to run based on his personal decision to be with his family and to support his son Beau, who was undergoing treatment for a devastating brain cancer diagnosis.
On the second topic - the emails. For God's sake, please stop about Hilary and the emails. The emails were a media heist. Let it go.
Considering the current Administration's lack of dignity, respect, and its' single-minded mission to rollback any policies enacted during the Obama administration, whether they have proven to be a benefit to the American people; you have much more to write about where the facts are real, far-reaching and have the potential to impact the next generations for decades to come.
America's short-sightedness and desire for some far-fetched "instant gratification" elected Trump - only time and history will show the devastating impact as Mr. Trump continues to bankrupt the country, setting us up for a deep recession between his "corporate giving" program of tax breaks, Trade War tariffs and complete disregard for the Environment, Sustainability and our Allies.
In the meantime, please refrain from opining on topics where your facts are incorrect. It is an insult to the integrity of the NYTimes.
57
Have noticed quite a few commenters defending Hillary. Its hard for me to feel much sympathy for her. She had Obama campaigning relentlessly for her, most of the media and Hollywood on her side, and the entire establishment of both major parties on her side. At the end of the day, all she had to do was hold the "blue wall" of states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Penn, which had voted Democratic for the past 30 years. Instead of spending time with actual voters in places like Wisconsin - she kept running out to California to do more and more fundraisers with her Hollywood friends, and running up the score in a state that she was sure to win anyway. Her allocation of resources and time was a combination of arrogance and stupidity. No one to blame but herself!!
24
Does anyone need inspiration today? I sure received it when I saw the introduction of the Obama Foundation 2018 Fellows. 20,000 applicants from 191 countries resulting in 20 Fellows from 11 countries all ready to make the world better for everyone. President and Mrs. Obama are good for us.
27
Michael Karpin, Tel Aviv: Dowd's simplistic interpretation misses most of Obama's intentions. He meant to say to Rhods: We have offered the Americans and the world a set of values that is not appropriate for the present era. Of course, in the era after Trump, Obama's set of values will be accepted more easily. There was a need to rinse the dish so that it could be cooled afterwards. This is the eternal reality of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. By electing Trump to be president, the corrupt American politics, where politicians represent big capital and not the people, had to reach the end of the scale of corruption to begin the journey back to purity. Obama's real mistake was a prosaic error of practical management: For the 2010 Senate special election in Massachusetts, the Democratic Party nominated Martha Coakley, the Massachusetts Attorney General. She was a bad choice. On the republican side stood Scott Brown, a Massachusetts State Senator. A few weeks before the voter's decision Brown was closing the gap with Coakley. Obama fell asleep on guard and until he woke up the target was captured by his opponents. During his entire term in office that was Obama's most significant mistake. If Kennedy's place in the Senate had been saved by Democrats, Trump would probably remain the Apprentice's producer. Michael Karpin is an Israeli Journalist and an author of nonfiction. His book "Tightrope – Six Centuries of a Jewish Dynasty" was published by John Wiley & Sons.
7
Wow ... how conceited can one man be. Really ... he is too good for us?? That somehow, he, and he alone, knows what the correct path is and millions of other Americans "just don't get it"?
He's the one that doesn't get it. The citizens of the United States were formed because a government far away was telling us what to do and not listening to us. They made the mistake in thinking they could just disarm us and we would blindly follow their sage advice.
Obama isn't forward thinking, he's over 200 years behind the times. Ignore the will of the American citizen at the risk of becoming ... irreleveant.
Which is exactly what President Trump is thankfully doing ... making the conceited acts of ex-President Obama irrelevant.
Thank you President Trump for undoing one of the biggest errors this country has ever made.
23
Fewer unbalanced articles like this before the 2016 election (and the 2000...and the 2004...) and we'd have a very different world, in particular with DT back to his richly-deserved obscurity.
11
ell, Obama should have just pardoned Hillary like Reagan pardoned Weinberger. THAT was his mistake. He could have said she did nothing wrong, but just to stop the Witch Hunt, here's a pardon. Done it during the 8th or 9th Benghazi investigation. And, oh, Maureen? Obama didn't 'abandon' Biden to back Hillary. Biden decided not to run.
7
I never thought I’d agree with Maureen Dowd, but this article is spot on.
18
Too good for us? From the guy who bailed-out the wealthiest people in the world while the rest of us lost 10 years of our lives. The guy, who's administration saw inequality swell to a gap not seen in more than a century. I could go on but you get it, right. Yeah, just too good.
25
Hey Maureen, how convenient that you forgot to mention the part about the Republicans meeting on the day of the 2009 inauguration -- and deciding, despite the worst financial crisis since the Depression, to oppose en masse Obama's every move for four (eight) years.
47
YES Obama has some weaknesses. Failing to do his duty against the Bush war criminals being his greatest failure. However, Maureen completely ignores the "just say NO" republicans he faced for 3/4'ths of his service term. Imagine what could have been done, like the Affordable Care Act, with a reasonable Congress.Yes, Obama cannot abide the fool, and this characteristic can be viewed as arrogance by lesser lights, but for the most part Obama did know right from wrong.
As an aside, being a Sander's supporter as I am, I resent any and all comparison of Sander's people and the racist hacks that vote for Trump.
7
People seem confused still. Obama was not on the ballot in 2016. The hopes and fears of the American people were. Trump stoked their fears. Hillary offered nothing but more of the same. That wasn't enough.
4
More like "Just to good for the Republicans" In his 8 years, Dems lost the house, senate, Presidency, 20 Dem Governors and over 1,000 state senate seats. Obama was what he is now, nothing more than a creation of the liberal media and Hollywood. A empty suit. His only legacy left is Donald Trump. He was the single biggest gift to the GOP since Jimmy Carter.
22
I generally detest Maureen Dowd's writing. Too clever by half, and will take any position if a clever phrase can be turned. No H. L. Mencken, she.
But on this column she is spot on. I too was flabbergasted by the reported comment that Obama thought he was too early by 20 years.
To my mind Obama lost it when he allowed the criminals who destroyed the economy to go scot free. The president has immense powers -- he should have made sure the top ten banksters never got out of solitary for the rest of their lives. Nothing else signaled to the rest of us that the law did not apply to all equally. He should have kneecapped the banksters even if it meant treading on a few court decisions. Lincoln was not afraid to defy the courts when necessary. 2008 was such a moment, and Obama wasted it.
12
"But by the end of his second term, he had lost the narrative about lifting up people, about buoying them on economic issues and soothing their jitters about globalization. They needed to know, what’s in it for them?"
Too many stupid people wanted a winning lotto ticket rather than comprehending the infrastructures of Democracy; fairness,justice, environmental, healthcare and economic stability are building blocks....So, they believed the Pied Piper who offered specific promises (LIES): Big Beautiful Healthcare for all; Coal Jobs returned; lower taxes for all and all would be done by Executive magic wand-waving. Yes...Obama was just too good for us.
14
Like his adoring supporters, Obama believed his problem was too little awareness of how right he was. It seems to be a progressive affliction that someone else is always blamed when a progressive fails to deliver. Is it any wonder why someone who takes responsibility for everything was elected? Not to the clear-eyed critics of Obama.
16
Ms. Dowd, what is the point of this cynical look backward? We have a man in office who at every turn, is either maligning and defaming inidiviual, officials or our institutions. We have a man who has ignored the most serious attack on our most sacred right; our right to have elections free of foreign intervention. We have man who is now attempting to smear a legal investigation. And, in all or your years and years of opinion writing; you choose to look backward to criticize President Obama. No one who is rational can look back and not long for the boring days of Obama.
Rear view mirror writing are not helpful in a time of greater and greater risk to the very foundations of our nation. Mr. Obama's faults are so dwarfed by Mr. Trump's. One really has to wonder Ms. Dowd; what is the point of this cynical look backward?
25
"...we were not enlightened enough for the momentous changes wrought by the smartest people in the world — or even evolved enough for the first African-American president.Sometimes I wonder whether I was 10 or 20 years too early."
Maureen dismisses these profound statements from Obama to sneer that: "we just weren't ready for his amazing awesomeness." But the election of Trump proves Obama's point. Too many Americans are racist, close minded and ignorant of what is going on in the world. And why is that? Could it be decades of right wing media brainwashing the masses with their alternate truths? And the Republican party endorsing this spin for their own power grabbing agenda?
No Maureen, we are not ready to accept non whites and women as equals in our society. And we are not ready to sacrifice for the greater good, for the future of the environment and the country. We want to live well now at any cost to America and the rest of the world and we refuse to pay for it. Trump knew this all too well. In their hearts Americans want the free lunch. And want America to be White (dominated) Again. Trump knows he has a hard core voter following that would vote for him even if he "shoots someone om Fifth Avenue." He mines the lowest common denominator in people and has ridden it to success. Trump is ripping apart the social fabric of society in the way he separates people into warring tribes. In light of this, Maureen's pointing out flaws in Obama is disgraceful.
20
Ms. Dowd, don't you think it will ever be time to "move on". The king is dead, we had an election and a new president. The world has plenty of problems we all should be concerned about. Obama's failures no longer make the list. Stop wringing your hands and look outside at today's world....
11
I don’t disagree with the points made in the piece about our former President’s arrogance. But why not include the obvious? That Obama ran for president as a man of the people and then filled his cabinet with the people who caused the crisis in the first place.
What if we were wrong in being so right??
Sheesh
13
It is really so much simpler:
A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest...
That's all any of us need to know about politics.
7
For Ms Dowd, the issue is not policy or morality, it’s is simply which celebrity has been nicer to Ms. Dowd. That is why she has been an apologist for Trump, and a critic of Obama.
22
This article only makes me appreciate Obama more while we live through this nightmare of a presidency. Being in my late 60's, Obama has been the most professional, effective and candid president that I have witnessed. And for a black man to obtain the presidency after so many years of discrimination, says to me our nation has grown up- until now as we are faced with the man-child of a presidency. For me, Obama and Michelle made America proud.
23
How uncharitable of Dowd, a stingy and narrow gripe about President Obama's self reflection post President Trump's election victory as if he was a narcissist. Obama is reflecting here across generations asking whether his election came prematurely to the demographic change heading our way and possible better acceptance of that change than we are seeing now. It's a mature question to ask especially given the backlash response of the Trump election and administration with its restrictionist policies and outright racial dog whistles to white supremacists.
13
Is there a single positive action Trump has initiated, resulting in good results? For answers I direct you to the economy, tax reductions, regulation reductions, and the NK talks, to name just a few! These are not token positive actions, they are real!
12
Hard to win against cheaters.
Please don't go digging for blame on Obama or Hillary for the loss of America's pride. It was us, Fox, Russia, Republicans, a 2hour news cycle, "balanced news" reporting objectives and the rigged system of cheating called the electoral college conspiring to end the era of good intentions.
13
Ms. Dowd,
You have it all wrong. Completely wrong.
Obama's presidency was essentially about being decent and caring to people who didn't have the advantages that others may have.
Providing these folks with access to healthcare, bringing the economy back from disaster and putting needed controls on banks and others who tanked it in the first place, taking care of our precious environment and trying to move the country towards alternative energy sources, speaking out about racism and other forms of discrimination...these are good things. Honest things.
As a recent Pugh foundation report pointed out people DID NOT vote for Donald Trump primarily because they felt left out and economically depressed. They voted for Trump because he appealed to the idea that White folks were losing control of their country. Tribalism as President Obama rightly points out.
In other words...a very real racial element.
Obama simply tried to do the opposite...bring people together the best he could...what crosses race and religion more than universal healthcare? The color of your skin is not attached to it.
Yet, White America decided, no, it wanted Donald Trump instead. And now look where we are.
35
More armchair quarterbacking. Will it ever end? I doubt it. Trump's win will have people questioning for many years to come.
Obama was too good for us. Thank goodness enough voters wanted "too good" for two terms. But the forces against our first Black and the "first woman" were far stronger than anyone could have realized.
The economic crash of 2008 was the straw that broke the camel's back. The millions of disenfranchised would not find their way, and when hope is lost, humans turn to guns, drugs, and religion. The gospel according to Obama would do little to soothe and inspire these folks.
Hillary had good reason to be paranoid. She's always had tons of haters, no matter how well she performed her job. She took Powell's advice about a private email and turned it into a server in her basement. Hillary alone is at fault for giving her opponent just the perfect ammunition to fuel the ad hook "crooked." Not much different than Bill giving his opponents Monica. As smart as they can be, Bill and Hillary have a self-destructive streak. In the end, they're just normal, flawed people.
2016 was not the year to have serious flaws. To defeat the bombast of Reality TV Trump, we needed another Obama. Good luck finding that. Obama was too good for us.
13
Don't blame me. I supported Jim Webb and voted for Sanders in the primary. My wish for 2020 is Biden/Obama. Not too good for me. Just keep asking more of yourself.
7
It's the Constitution and Liberty that stood in the way of Obama. It was never his strong point. Americans understand that. progressivism is contrary to that basic fact. When you say a living breathing Constitution your throwing the whole thing out. People are living breathing
9
Maureen Dowd is right. Many Americans voted for Barack Obama for president in 2008 because they wanted something “honest and cool and modern.” As it turned out, we got the Obama “cool” but sorely lacked the “honest” and “modern” leadership ingredients. “Honest” in simply being straight with us on Obamacare costs, penalties and disruption of doctor relationships. “Modern” in not falling prey to political partisanship that tells the other side, after winning a second presidential term, “we won you lost,” so you on the other side can go pound sand. Indeed, in the end it will be written that Barack Obama was a good man, but a man who squandered a great opportunity to bring Americans together. Instead he demonstrated the predictable ego-driven qualities of your average American politician.
23
Whatever one's opinion of Obama he surely was not responsible for Clinton's defeat. She and she alone is entirely to blame for her loss. It is another matter that the party ought to fielded a better candidate.
9
First off... I doubt this is will make it past "monitor" since I'm not praising the name of Obama. This Obama love-fest is truly baffling. What did he do besides lie to us about the "affordable" care act and bring the economy to a screeching halt? Benghazi? Adding 9 Trillion dollars more to the debt? We had 94 million Americans out of the workforce with the lowest labor force participation rate of 62.7%. Compare that to now.
I could go on and on and on... You don't need to idolize President Trump, approve of all his tweets or celebrate his former playboy lifestyle to acknowledge his stunning string of accomplishments. But if you think that America isn't dramatically better off than under Obama or that things aren't immensely better than they would have been under Clinton, I'm not sure we're on the same planet.
25
Once again, we blame the vast shortcomings of an indifferent and uneducated populace on its leader. Time to look in the mirror.
12
So Obama and HRC are to blame for Donald Trump's win. That's not an original thought, but has been floated every six months since November 2016. Rather, I believe Trump's lies, collusion with foreign powers, coded racism and forthright sexism and all-out con was a winning combination for Trump voters. He didn't have an economic message either -- he just tore down Obama and chanted "lock her up."
10
Maureen, let's not forget that while Obama was trying to do things to uplift ALL Americans, the Republican party was rapturously following Nancy Reagan's advice and "just saying NO," to everything. They played perhaps the most central part in the destruction of democracy. Because after all the voting, someone has to implement an ongoing plan for keeping the polis alive. Republicans don't want that. Republicans don't want democracy. Republicans want two social classes: aristocracy and serfs. And unfortunately, they are better at manipulating the foolish and gullible natures of most people, because Republicans have no conscience. They don't even know what it means. America is again the harbinger of social change, but this time the change is toward a devolution -- we're well on our way to the world as viewed in the earliest of the Mad Max films. And the very wealthy foolishly think they've won. But what they've won will be a world untenable for all. Congratulations.
8
Testing 1,2,3, testing--
Valid points. However, remember the future?
The political pendulum's sharp recoil --2016: a regression into the heart of darkness.
4
Dowd, being the ultimate snob seems to forget that Obama was dutifully contemplative and constantly questioned himself. It should be seen as an attribute, as a quality we want in a leader. Yet she cannot resist smirking, seeing this humility as further evidence of his failure to "walk on water". Why, so often, was his inability to levitate and wave a magic wand, seen as a human weakness?
31
If the incumbent Party loses the White House to an unpopular challenger during a period of economic expansion, part of the responsibility has to fall on the President. Bill Clinton was partly to blame for Al Gore's loss in 2000.
2
I was only 10 years old when JFK got elected but I remember staying up as late as I could to watch TV to see who had won. That was the last time, until Obama's election, that I was overjoyed by a presidential victory.
I truly believe there is a large segment of the American population who was not only not ready for a black president (thus the adherents of the belief Obama was born in Kenya), they are also not ready for progressive policies. Not only Obama, but also the whole Democratic Party, is ahead of much of the electorate in our desire for single-payer healthcare, equal rights for all Americans, fair and just immigration reform which reflects our values, an end to wage stagnation so there would be no more working poor, a fair and equitable tax system that does not only benefit the rich and corporations, education reforms that meet the needs of 21st century students, affordable college tuition, a focus on our decaying infrastructure and a return to decency and civility in our public discourse and a return to a respect for truth, transparency, dignity, integrity and ethical behavior.
Obama was wrong about his perception of much of the electorate who thrive on bigotry, hate, resentment and fear of a world that is changing too fast for them to adjust to it in their insular narrow-mindedness. Obama thought we were better than that. About that, he was, indeed, wrong.
15
Let’s all agree that President Obama was a gift from above for the American people, the powers that be in both parties knew it and did nothing to help him bring about the change the Nation needed and its citizens craved. Quite the opposite in fact, made apparent from day one when single payer was dumped for the ACA, made even more unpalatable as premiums rose, Doctors dropped out, Healthcare stocks soared and the Judas Lieberman went on to a lucrative career outside of Government, no surprise there. The picture of President Obama says it all, he knows he was on the side of the angels, he knows the people loved him and saw through the obstacles thrown up before him, it was the slime surrounding him from both parties that ruined his chance at building a new America. We are not likely to see another man like Him in our lifetime one so eloquent, so reserved and confident in his decision making and above all a man and his family who were so decent, quite a contrast to what we have now or what we would have had with Clinton. President Obama, Thank You from the bottom of millions of our hearts.
17
I liked Obama, as a person. I supported him, but I never go t the sense that he supported people like me. He had strong popularity, but refused to spend any of it in a political fight. The Republicans did stonewall him, but that should not have worked. It is Obama's fault that they succeeded. Reagan used his popularity to work Congress into a corner. Obama made the remark that he had a phone and a pen, choosing to write his legacy on water. I admit, too, that when he scolded voters for not wanting Hillary, he lost my support. He was right in 2008 about her. Telling me that she was now the most prepared candidate in history when she couldn't even be clear about how to store email, seemed like a huge sell-out.
20
"... and backed a woman who had no economic message ..."
Hillary's economic problem was that she backed the message of her husband, and she also failed to talk to workers except in vague terms.
NAFTA (ultimately signed into law by Bill Clinton in December 1993) sent many good, well-paying American jobs with good benefits to other countries. Job retraining never kept up to speed, and workers were left with lower-paying jobs often with substantially worse benefits. Money came back to the U.S. but has wound up in the hands of the economic elite, including those overseas.
Eventually, the chickens came home to roost. Trump is trying to reopen factories in the U.S., but it is too late. Now we need serious talk of a minimum basic income, but no one wants to discuss it. We will be suffering the consequences of NAFTA (and TPP to some extent) for many years to come.
Is it really surprising that blue-collar voters ultimately rose up and elected Trump, despite all of his obvious flaws? To find the last truly forceful, charismatic, and visionary Democratic presidents, you have to go back to JFK and LBJ, more than half a century ago. That is a sad state of affairs.
13
Maureen Dowd's point of view precisely proves the point that YES, Obama came way too early for America. SAD!
In 2015 Obama spoke in Selma, Alabama on the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. He said "That's what America is. Not stock photos or airbrushed history, or feeble attempts to define some of us as more American than others. We respect the past, but we don't pine for the past. We don't fear the future; we grab for it. America is not some fragile thing. We are large, in the words of Whitman, containing multitudes. We are boisterous and diverse and full of energy, perpetually young in spirit. That's why someone like John Lewis at the ripe old age of 25 could lead a mighty march. And that's what the young people here today and listening all across the country must take away from this day. You are America. Unconstrained by habit and convention. Unencumbered by what is, because you're ready to seize what ought to be. "
This speech would probably make sense in 2028, but certainly not today.
5
I appreciate that the NYT publishes opinion pieces that come at an issue from angles I would never have believed existed.
It seems to me that Hillary and Obama's fatal flaw in Maureen's view was that they were willing to tell hard truths to the voting public (free trade gains outweigh the costs, we need to do everything we can for the coal miners that will be out of work, the claims about Hillary's email were much ado about nothing).
It's obvious now that if Hillary had told more pants-on-fire lies in the rust belt and in coal country, she'd be President, but I don't think that's an indication of her and Obama believing that they're too good for us, but rather that they're just decent people who think that lying is bad, and that they were trying to govern, not sell mattresses or steaks.
Also, Maureen says Obama should have tried harder to explain what he was doing. I think that Trump was elected is proof that Obama tried to explain too much. Trump is proof that Americans don't want reality, they want reality tv.
41
And read the LA Times endorsement of Hillary over Bernie Sanders and watch the ridiculous session that Sanders had with Chris Matthews. Hillary was also unwilling to tell a bunch of naive voters that despite a republican Congress and even Democrats who didn't agree with him Sanders would waltz into office and point Mitch McConnell to the million children standing outside his window and through some sort of magic involving McConnell's fear for his job give everyone free healthcare and College.
3
Unfortunately, the basic point remains: you have to get elected if you want to govern. You don't have to lie, but you must have charisma. Obama has it. Hillary never did. Obama's problem was that he worried too much, about how what he did would look and about how Republicans would respond to him. He was young and politically inexperienced. He simply had to go for the jugular. Just look at Republicans like Trump, Ryan, and McConnell. You can't mess around.
2
Ted Kennedy endorsed Obama over Hillary Clinton in the primary. Why do you think that was?
As an elder statesman steeped in the knowledge of the factors that influence elections, he understood 1) that the less baggage a politician has the better his/her chances and 2) politicians have a shelf life--recycling is a mistake and 3) charisma and the ability to inspire are VERY important.
If only Obama had learned that lesson before he positioned Clinton for the presidential run. I can only imagine that he struck a deal with the Clintons to position her as a candidate in exchange for their support, which he didn't need in my opinion.
And that breaks my heart, for here we are steeped in the catastrophe that is the Trump presidency.
9
SO many things infuriating about this "Opinion", but let me say, Pres. Obama did not "push aside his loyal vice president". Vice President Biden chose not to run for reasons we could all understand on a human level.
17
Although his heart was in the right place and he was a significant improvement over both his predecessor and his successor, Obama made many mistakes. He kowtowed too often to the Randians in Congress, culminating with what would've been a n enormous, ruinous bluncer had he not been saved from it by the slavering hordes on the far right, his "Grand Bargain." But he let the Republicans keep moving the goalposts whenever we needed a budget extension or to avoid hitting the debt ceiling, and did much to dismantle our social safety net we had built up since the Great Depression.
And he let Bush's tax cuts largely become permanent -- a lasting problem that has accelerated the expansion of the chasm between our rich and our middle class.
But his biggest mistake -- BY FAR -- was his support for the Syrian rebels. This blunder, greatly lengthening that tragic war and resulting in horrible, lasting hardship and millions of refugees, has contributed to the precarious state of the European Union and the rise of Fascist parties and separatist efforts in many European states, while greatly diminishing our influence in the Middle East and indeed throughout the world.
Maybe it seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe he was talked into it by Netanyahu, who always strove for the destruction of Syria. But regardless, it was a HORRIBLE blunder with lasting consequences with no potential gain.
5
Interesting thoughts. Over time we will see if much or any thing you have said will ring true. Personally I think he thought too much and acted too little. It's easy to think you're really smart in Washington because there is so little competition. If you think you are smart you probably are not.
11
No matter how hard Obama pushed, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and Paul Ryan declared on the day of Obama's election that they would make sure he would be a one-term President. It was clear that no matter what Obama proposed for policies to help every day people, they were not going to be acted on or would be defeated. In spite of the fact that his proposals were for the common good. When you have Mitch McConnell deny the right of President Obama to nominate a Supreme Court Justice, is that Obama's fault? I believe that McConnell is a racist, as well as Boehner and Ryan. They did not like the fact that a Bi-racial man was elected overwhelming to the Presidency.
Please Ms. Dowd, stop blaming Obama for the failure of the United States Congress to act with equity and care for its Citizens.
They are the real humiliation of this Century.
Obama instilled hope and tried his best for the Citizens of this country. He represented the better angels in all of us.
The fact that he lamented that maybe he aimed too high for us, is not his failing but that of Congress.
Trump is a disgrace to this country. He desecrates the office of the Presidency, the dignity of the Office, relationships with our allies. His Cabinet members are destroying our protections, our civil rights, our environment, our Justice system.
Obama did not discourage Joe Biden to run. Biden had just lost his son and did not have his heart in a run for the Presidency.
Please stop blaming Obama for what ails us.
36
Look 70% of Americans thought the country was heading in the wrong direction and they Figured Hillary was just an extension of Obama's policies. That is EXACTLY why she lost
21
This directly contradicts the belief that Obama was revered around the world and would have won a 3rd term if given the chance. There remains a major disconnect between Obama, his supporters and everyone else.
17
The column does not blame Obama for Clinton's defeat. Nor does it blame Obama for Clinton being selected as the candidate. The focus of the column is not Obama, it is the Dems failure accurately to perceive the perspectives of about half the electorate. Recall the early Clinton theory that she could win with the black vote - utter nonsense - did anyone at DNC check the demographics? Recall the Clinton attitude that she deserved it, it was her turn - most people are repelled by someone with that attitude because no one is entitled. The Clinton's should've known about that given that a main reason Bill Clinton won was that GHW Bush didn't appear to want to win, stopped working at the campaign, and appeared as if he knew he would win. The columns real focus should be the Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's of the DNC who saddled us with the worst candidate possible, the one person who could definitely lose to Trump, because they wanted to make history with a woman. I'm all for a woman president, but she has to be the right woman, and Hillary isn't. Witness her talk at Yale's graduation - that smug and condescending presentation that she knows it all. People want someone they can relate to, trust, be proud of - Hillary was never that person from the condescending cookie comment to the dodging bullets lie. If there's any mistake by Obama, it is that the DNC played the gender card on him and he didn't stand up to that.
15
It is a bit tiresome to hear repeated again and again the explanation that Hillary lost because she was "smug and condescending" or acted "entitled".
I suppose we are expected to believe that Trump was a humble Everyman?
"Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it." --DJT
11
So now trump is Obama’s fault. Thanks Obama.
It’s so easy, isn’t it, Ms Dowd, to fall back into that oh so clever snark mode, where you unload on what has been your favorite punching bag.
I look at our country now, and I know that trump’s America is just as much the “real” one as Obama’s. But where Obama presented an aspirational ideal that was perhaps impossible to achieve, trump presents a “can’t touch me” illusion of strength and certainly built entirely of empty declamation, bullying, and blame.
Where the uplifting rhetoric many claim as arrogance was unable to gain was a refusal by the GOP leadership determined to make him a one-term president, and they stuck together to knock the legs out from under every attempt he made to build consensus. Meanwhile the Democrats, as usual, became the roaming herd of cats that never could provide Obama’s with reliable backup.
The current president has a rock-solid base, a complicit GOP, and Democrats in disarray. But his rhetoric is not aspirational, it is one that flattens everything and divides and excludes, and the policy of resentment and victimhood has served to bring to light the very worst of our character.
The opposite ends of the spectrum of America are represented by both presidents. Our country embodies the traits of both, but only when the extremes are embraced we cannot succeed fully- on one end paralyzed by head-in-the-stars idealism, at the other, blindly marching in lockstep over a cliff of nationalism.
19
President Trump has already done more for Americans looking for employment, looking for tax relief, looking for stable energy prices than Obama did in eight years. I won't even mention Obama's foreign failures, not enough room here.
16
The biggest mistake that Obama, and other’s on the center left made, and still make was believing that most Democrats, progressives included, would have the wisdom not to let the perfect become the enemy of the good. The likes of Dowd and Susan Sarandon along with countless Bernie supporters just can’t seem to fathom this notion, and trashed HRC. Justifying their actions by either the fantasy of a revolution should Trump actually win, or that Hillary was simply the personification of evil. The result is we are now stuck with Trump’s twittering while Rome burns.
7
This seems to be the cry of every demagogue in history, that the people are not worthy of them.
14
Candidate Obama promised to end the Iraq and Afghanistan wars but not only did he restart those winding down wars but started new ones in Libya and Syria. Candidate Obama promised to stop NSA spying on all but he actually strengthened the Patriot act allowing more NSA spying on all citizens. I accepted those promises to vote for him but he lied as a candidate. At least candidate Trump is trying very hard to follow up on his promises and I prefer that to like lying Candidate Obama to get elected.
19
The Obama administration saved the country from the Great Recession descending into a Great Depression. They accomplished that in the face of unprecedented Republican obstruction. What Obama failed to do was spend enough effort on public relations touting his accomplishments to educate the public. He also was clearly not interested in the nitty gritty of politics and building the party at the local level. So the man made some missteps and errors but considering the cesspool we have descended into with tRump and his band of thieves Obama was light years better.
13
So, in summary, Obama is a black version of Jimmy Carter. A decent, thoughtful man ill-fitted for the rough-and-tumble of Washington politics who was too lost in his own idealism to deliver on the hope he promised the American electorate.
11
First and foremost, President Obama did not make or annoint Clinton as his heir apparent, she did that herself. I remember it was clear that President Obama wanted Joe Biden to be his successor, not Hillary Clinton. Second, Clinton's campaign was hers and hers alone, catastrophic on many levels, from being wrong candidates at wrong time with an old-fashioned 1980's campaign which was also tone-deaf. She played to the Special Interests in her party, not the party never mind the country. Trump's not a Republican, he's for Trump, he's the party/country of Trump and what he can grab for Trump - he's good brander and he branded/sold himself as a mirage. Hillary didn't address the needs concerns of too many people, just the fringe. Putin threw everything against Hillary cause he was afraid of her and only her - Hillary understood his deep desire to raise USSR from the ashes of democracy. Putin using Trump to finally accomplish USSR/Stalin/KGB Goal - destroy America as a democracy - Trump is perfect in that role for Putin. That's not on President Obama, Clinton was blinded by her own disdain for Trump, a man she knows personally, she just didn't comprehend too many Americans draw to a circus barker like Trump because she didn't engage with them.
4
Barak Obama was one of the worst, least qualified presidents ever to hold that office. Where others, Reagan and Clinton being two of the most obvious, managed to deal with Congresses one or more houses of which were controlled by their most determined opponents, Obama couldnt even be effective when he had total control of both houses, immeasurably worse once things started to fall apart in 2010. His arrogant lack of leadership and failed policies lead to the Democrats eventually losing their grip everywhere except a few coastal enclaves and the the installation by an enraged mob of the Progressive's worse nightmare in the White House. A thoroughly uncritical media fooled him and his Progressive allies into a false sense that their opponents were a small fringe minority and that most people were on board with stagnant growth, anti-business statism, open borders and anti-American globalism. The final insult was a candidate who was prone to coughing fits, temper tantrums, got caught openly breaking the law by running her State business through an easily hacked system of private servers proving her utter incompetence and arrogance and whose screeching, incoherent speeches filled with insults to regular voters underlined what a terrible choice she was as a candidate. Instead of Shakespeare maybe Obama should have quoted Zero Mostel from Mel Brooks' 'Producers'..."Where did I go right?"
Good question.
28
There you have it in @Skep41: 63+ million Americans in a nutshell.
4
This is just a bit harsh. Few leaders are appreciated in their own time. History will be kinder to Obama than Ms. Dowd.
3
I’m surprised that Maureen Dowd doesn’t mention race. Don’t you think that was at the heart of Obama’ s speculation that he was too early, and that America is reverting to tribalism? The country was awash in self congratulations on his inauguration day. Eight years later, Trump slashed open a revolting boil of racism and resentment-fueled America-firstism; and is now using that to diminish our nation, at home and abroad.
16
Were all you people asleep when Obama repeatedly killed innocent women and children ("collateral damage" of course) with hellfire missiles as he perpetuated an unjust war in a foreign land? How about when his administration locked people up with multi-decade sentences for marijuana law violations, after his lenthy stint as a self-confessed pothead? How about the mass deportations and intermediate incarceration of people who came here to find a better life for their children? His health care reform was a flop, his economic policies were little more than massive spending programs (often to the immediate benefit of those who had political connections), and his foreign policies allowed the strengthening of the two major dictatorships on the globe, Russia and China, while continuing a murderous course in the Middle East.
The Obama-was-an-angel crowd may be right in seeing him as far superior to Trump--after all, who isn't? But their complete lack of objectivity in assessing his presidency removes any credibility they might otherwise enjoy.
14
It can’t be emphasized enough how much Obama had to battle the Republican, extremist bent that has taken over. If not Trump, they would have elected Cruz! For the majority of his terms, everything he attempted, Obama battled the likes of McConnell and much worse. With a Democratic party that never supported him enthusiastically or got its act together.
6
Mrs Clinton "had no economic message"? Seriously?? She and her advisors gave serious and practical thought to every thinkable aspect of American life and world affairs, and wrote it all down.
One thing that does puzzle me, though, is that Trump or something spooked her on the TPP treaty, so instead of explaining its purpose (which Trump was clueless about, in fact had it exactly backwards) she jumped on the Trumpsky anti-TPP bandwagon. Bad move in so many ways, especially since explaining it should have been rather easy.
6
With signature civility Obama has mostly faded from the American political scene. Eight years was more than enough of fighting dragons at almost every turn. I’m not intimating that he is sainted by any measure, but given what America has now, the consummate hack and huckster in the White House, Obama looks like the gold standard — warts and all.
The Clintons are left to their many millions and a closet full of skeletons, recriminations, and hopefully life in suitable obscurity. Hillary was after all far too much about being the anointed one. We love the pageantry of a royal coronation — but not the laying on of the royal crown.
Trumps turn in the box and mostly a monumental travail and an unmitigated moral travesty; our progressive political affliction taken to the ragged edge.
The American age of serial denial rolls on. None of this will get better of its own accord.
2
Obama promised much, delivered little. Trump is promising much and delivering. Both are arrogant, but one backs up his words with actions while the other condescends.
22
"Obama did not like persuading people to do what they didn’t want to do. And that is the definition of politics."
Obama deeply resented needing Congressional approval for his plans. The egomaniac felt that he, the Smartest Human Ever, should not need to explain himself or seek approval from anyone. Once Obama the Infallible states his plans, there should not be any further discussion!
17
It was not his election to win.
3
Many of us knew the emperor had no clothes awhile ago. But we were told that there was no such thing as legitimate criticism of the Obama Administration and that anyone who didn't believe in its infallibility was a racist.
Many of us knew that the empress had lots of baggage but no clothes, as well. But we were told that if we didn't support her, we were deplorable.
And that, dear readers, is how Trump won the election.
This column should have been written years ago.
23
There's a latency between economic policy and the economy. It took years for Obama administration prudent economic policies to kick in. Trump lauds our current economy, but much current economic success is the legacy of Obama.
In two years the country's economy condition will firmly be the result of Trump's chaotic economic policies -- ballooning federal deficits, trade wars, corrupt environmental deregulation. And the prospects of the greatest economic disruptor of all, war, inch closer with every mindless tweet.
1
I admire Obama. He was Presidential everywhere he was supposed to be, reasonable, sophisticated, and smart. He was not forceful enough. He did not push people who needed pushing. He did not push ideas and solutions (Middle East) that needed his attention. Propelling ideas and people toward getting National (ACA) and international (ME) results were his part of his authority in his function to provide leadership. Trump is the equivalent of a drunk driver. Obama was always sober.
7
President Obama compromised the middle class to the Tea Party. He was capable of speaking to middle class values but though he would lose support of what reasonable Republicans may have existed and postured for a legacy; he got it: Trump.
3
Yes, because of Hillary Clinton we have Trump who has undone years and years of progress for the people of this country and the world. The Democratic Party needs a complete revamping and get in touch with what the American people want and need. Had they followed how Obama ran against her 8 years before we would not be in this mess. Great article as always Maureen.
6
Dowd has it right.
Sadly, given Trump's enthusiasm for breaking anything 'Obama', all that will be left of Obama's legacy will be that he was the man that thrust the choice-less choice of Hillary Clinton into a nomination for the Presidency. In so doing, Obama demonstrated that by the end of his own Presidency he had forgotten much of what got him where he was in the first place.
In 2016, Republicans offered far greater clarity into the psyche of the electorate. They rejected anything that could possibly be interpreted as 'tried and true'. Obama forgot that pursuing the 'same old-same old' wasn't what brought him into office, and his successor quite clearly followed the same pattern.
I hope for the sake of this country the Democrats somehow learn a lesson from that experience. But when I read so many comments griping about Dowd, who in reality had zero to do with Clinton's loss, I fear that's just not so. When I see Tom Perez already breaking promises of neutrality in favor of endorsing Cuomo, when I see a roaring economy, I also see 2020 opening the gates to more years of the Trump sewer we're in. Heaven help us.
8
Obama made few mistakes, obvious in retrospection, like being too tepid, too bipartisan and to conciliatory in 2009-2010. However he would have been way bolder if Franken was sworn in January giving Dems 60 votes in Senate and proposing much better Stimulus, and Ted Kennedy didn’t passed away in September, and for the same reason giving Dems much better Obamacare, better Dodd-Frank financial reform and bold infrastructure bill which died in 2010. These three bills would make him a hero in rural America.
Obama just was not lucky.
1
Two statements in Maureen's column stand out for me. One is: "Obama did not like persuading people to do what they didn’t want to do. And that is the definition of politics. " I never understood why someone so eloquent--someone who won the election and many of our hearts because of his oratory, didn't do a better job of selling his policies--especially when it came to such an important product like healthcare. President Obama could and should have done a better job of making the case for the ACA.
The other statement that pops up for me is at the heart of where we are now in American politics: When the President asks “And do you think that the type of people reading that stuff (about the Russian meddling in the election) were going to listen to me?” he identifies why some are asserting that only a civil war will close our political divide: we don't listen to each other and we no longer agree on facts.
10
Well, Ms. Dowd still misses the mark. Obama ran as a populist, but governed as something else. He was a blank slate, we all projected our hopes and aspirations onto him. What I saw were liberal social policies and country-club Republican economic policies.
The media had a hand in this. They ignored what everyday Americans were saying and feeling, just as Hillary did. Hillary was the corporate candidate, the people wanted Bernie but they got Hillary. Bernie got cheated, the media just went along with it and started touting Hillary. She mailed it in.
Along comes Trump with a combination of policies and platforms never seen in a Republican candidate before - economic protectionism, pro-union, withdrawal from overseas defense commitments, etc. The media kept pounding Trump and banging the drum for Hillary, but many people didn't believe the corporate media or their corporate candidate any longer.
If Obama was too good for us, so was the dominant media. You preach too long and try to tell everyone you know what's best, you get a backlash eventually.
17
Agreed. The media were totally complicit. In retrospect it seems incredible.
8
You are mistaken. Media was always against Hillary. This piece proves how much it still is.
5
Ms Dowd raises an interesting question, one I pondered for years: Why didn't President Obama do more to develop the next generation of Democratic national leaders? Imagine a dynamic forty-or-fifty-something taking on Trump instead of the well-known Clinton machine. Now Obama's battles must be fought all over again. I think historians of the future will spend a lot of time on this question.
13
Obama cared about Obama. He cost the Democrats 1000 elected offices. You are correct about fighting all of His battles over again. Trump is erasing Obama's legacy from the public domain. Just like those Civil War statues.
8
I think I know. Let me put it this way...the level of hypocrisy in Obama voters calling Trump a narcissist is stunning.
8
"Obama - Just too good for us" Well, that maybe Ms. Dowd's opinion, which she every right to express; but I and millions of other Americans disagree. I do though agree, as one reader has commented, that Hillary Rodham Clinton lost the 2016 election because her campaign focused on the issues and concerns of a very small portion, the fringe, of the Democratic constituency, ignoring the American working class, which had been the mainstay of Democratic politics since the 1930s. That was a mistake, one which Donald J. Trump seized and campaigned upon and won the 2016 presidential election. Trump triumphed; he continues to triumph; and will triumph through 2024. Especially if the Democrats continue to alienate the majority of Americans by calling them "deplorable." Thank you.
17
This column does confirm that a lot of white Americans of certain generations and attitudes were indeed just not ready for Barack Obama when he became president in 2009. Maureen Dowd was unquestionably one of them.
After all, in 2009 we were just ten years removed from the late 1990s when Dowd was at her peak of notoriety as a NY Times columnist shortly after getting hired for her apparent job-for-life in 1995. Don't forget that in the late 1990s, Dowd was part of an anti-Bill Clinton Catholic media mafia led by her, Chris Matthews, the late Michael Kelly, and the late Tim Russert. This was a nasty, reactionary quartet that did as much to make life difficult for the Clintons as Ken Starr did.
If you weren't ready for Bill Clinton in the 1990s, well you sure as heck weren't ready for Barack Obama 8 years after Clinton left the White House.
12
Obama was not an outstanding president in any of his action, achievements or outcomes. He failed to verbalize the fact that his elections was due to improved race relations in the United States. He could never have been elected president unless the majority of white "folks" voted for him.
After entering office he set this country down a path of identity politics never seen before. He increased the racial divide instead of taking advantage of the fact that he was the country's first black president. A significant opportunity squandered.
He failed to embrace the history and culture of the United States and provide leadership not only internally to the United States, but to the world. He let his theology of liberal politics guide him and approached his role as president from a theoretical/academic perspective. The country and the world needed leadership and he offered little.
He failed to understand that 99.9% of the US population is focused on their own economic success and purpose. Putting food on the table. Sending kids to school. Having a decent place to live. He offered no ability to improve the country economically other than a Kenysian driven government plan to spend massive amounts of money - which did little to benefit the average citizen but certainly benefited the elite.
Trump has many rough edges, but he at least understands basic economic principles and the priorities of the average citizen.
33
Another brutally honest assessment from Maureen Dowd. It is useful to reflect in this manner mostly because Barack Obama was a president who embodied all the values that we hold so dear, e.g., honesty, integrity, compassion, respect for the law and the American Constitution, but his elected successor is the exact opposite. As a society, how did we go to such extremes?
Is it just the law of political physics played out like we've never seen before? For each great leader, we have an equal and opposite horrible leader. Or it something more nuanced? Barack Obama was not a politician in spirit; while he advocated great ideas, he was not comfortable in the fight with congress to get them enacted. Ms. Dowd is correct in stating that he did lose, at least partially, the narrative of social change that he was elected on in the 2008 campaign, and had to adjust to the concerns of a more self-centered electorate. It seems to me that he saw in Hillary Clinton the consummate fighter that he was not. But she came with baggage that may have tipped the election.
President Obama was not too good for us but we were not ready to accept or understand his goodness. The question for us as kind and humane Americans who are shocked at what has happened to our government since the election of Donald Trump: how do we teach and inculcate the core values of inclusion, tolerance, kindness, economic fairness--essentially "goodness"?
5
You are wrong.
We are always ready for goodness, he didn't get it done.
He increased racial divide literally reversing the trend.
He thought his ideas should simply be accepted by all and especially congress.
That's not how our constitution and country works or works best...and the constitutional scholar never figured that out.
You have to persuade people and get them to want to do something.
He never figured that out and neither has trump.
Ironic reflections of each other, just delivered differently.
6
So, that about sums up the failures of Barack Obama, as much as one might wish to think it’s not so. The blame cannot be shifted. It was really not hard to see after the first year the divergence between how Obama viewed America and how Americans viewed themselves. Transform? I think not. Make better, yes.
12
President Obama did not push his Vice President aside. Vice President Biden took himself out of contention because he and his family still grieved for the loss of his son due to cancer. What a callous omission. Another omission is the failure to mention the GOP's conspiracy to obstruct democracy by refusing to co-operate with President Obama; blocking DOJ appointments, low legislative production, and carping criticism without constructive alternatives. Consider 2009, the nation is plotting a course to get out of the Great Recession. Did President Obama insult President Bush or consult President Bush? How many conversations has 45 had with President Obama? This column appears to be complaining about having a "Gentleman" in POTUS; suggesting a preference for a thug which we have now. Really!?
13
Maybe the problem Obama's audacity of hope. He was too audacious in his hope of what people were about.
A tragic example of this was, of course, Anne Frank with her famous remark:
“In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.”
Let us hope that that she was right and that this too shall pass.
When one remembers Ms Dowd's endless petty sniping at Obama - perhaps because he chided her once, as some commentators have suggested, it feels as though Anne Frank's optimism, though admirable, might have been misplaced. History tends to suggest that the "ever approaching thunder" she talks about still rumbles incessantly. The daily antics of the current administration confirm this.
7
I LOVE President Trump! We have a real leader back in charge once again. God bless you and keep up the excellent job, Sir.
23
When I first read Obama said "Maybe we were wrong", I thought he was talking about folding to McConnell on the Russia-meddling-with our-election issue. This was a fact agreed upon by our intelligence agencies, McConnell responded he not only would not make a bi-partisan announcement, he would denounce any announcement as politically based. I think Obama should have ignored this and made a forceful statement to the voters about this threat, the people who didn't believe him wouldn't have voted Democratic anyway.
2
He should have fired Comey immediately. Right after he was elected he tried to win over the GOP, but he should have stopped when he saw the writing on the wall. No matter what he did it wasn't good enough for the bigots. He should have come out swinging against McConnell. Who knows. Maybe it would have made a difference.
1
I can only speak for myself. I saw Clinton as a concentrated continuation of Obama. My thoughts only. So I took a pass. So far, I'm quite content.
17
I almost thought for a moment Maureen might have something positive to say about Obama. Of course, she can never resist a poke at Hillary. No doubt she and her campaign made mistakes. But, there is no rational reason that Trump won the job of leader of the free world. He ran a small insular organization of insiders, just as he did in his company and is doing in the White House; it was chaotic like his White House; he sabotaged himself at every turn with undisciplined and impulsive behavior, just as he is as President. The media fed off the carnival barker’s circus and barely covered Hillary unless it was a negative email story. Her convention was far more we’ll-organized, diverse and uplifting about America; she had a clear platform; and she won every debate on knowledge and poise. But, that’s not what voters based their decisions upon. Hillary isn’t an Obama on stage. With Hillary you get hard work by the smartest woman in the room. She is serious; Trump is unserious. However, Trump inspired emotion, but not the positive inspiring kind about the American ideal. He inspired white resentment on one end of the economic spectrum and greed on the other end. There was no grand plan for America. It was a campaign of sound bites and nativism intended to build a brand for a right wing cable TV station. It was self-promotion gone bad. He still has no grand plan, only daily reactions and blunders. Shame on US.
25
Thank you! I love it when someone gets it and expresses it so perfectly.
5
Thank you Maureen for the good laugh. You made my morning. You're a good humorist and should do this more often.
1
We face the first real challenge to the bedrock principles of our democracy for the first time in decades (at the least), and for some it's still time to blame those who at least worked for the most part within the parameters established by those principles. In the midst of an existential threat to our democracy led by President sTrump, his enablers, and his apologists, pointing a finger at President Obama and Hillary Clinton (whom Ms. Dowd, let's be honest, has targeted for years), misses the mark, and does so big time.
10
Obama dreamed big and fought from day one against those who did everything in their power to thwart those dreams. Under Obama we had the chance to change the entire world, the entire consciousness of the planet. For those who weren't afraid, it was a very hopeful time. The morning after his election I felt I was on the precipice of a great new dawn. I dared to hope. I dared to look at my son and think "you are going to enter a world of forward thinking justice". Shortly thereafter we all witnessed new lows from the republicans who would rather obstruct than change, atrophy than grow. This obstructionist mentality reached it's new high with the election of our current administration. Millions of people voted for the absolute antithesis of Obama out of a fear of change, a fear of growth, a fear that they might be asked to step up and evolve. The low-minded, terrified are clutching the earth, kicking and screaming, so afraid they might have to take responsibility for themselves, their country, the world. Sad.
14
This is pretty funny.
Obama and the Democratic Congress inflicted huge amounts of harm on the economy by strangling the finance, energy and healthcare industries (via Dodd-Frank, the ADA, etc.).
Trump is loathsome but I’ll take his approach to a freer economy and more robust capital and labor markets.
9
Huge amount of harm?
By helping to stabilize the economy and setting the groundwork of the biggest job market growths in decades?
The programs you mention are all still in effect and part of the recovery.
10
I voted for obama twice. I always gave him the benefit of the doubt because I believed he was very smart and a good man.I came to the conclusion pretty early that he was not an effective president when it came to politics in washington.
Bill clinton was a disgrace and I have no respect for a woman who would stay married to a man like that just for politics.The democratic party failed us by appointing her as nominee.
Before the election I knew that many working class people had been affected negatively by obamacare often hundreds or thousands of dollars. I told people if trump won it was because of this. When peoples insurance gets canceled and it costs three times as much for less coverage they are going to vote wth vengence. I cannot forgive obama for telling everyone they could keep their insurance if they were happy with it. I know now that no plans met the new standards and so would be obsolete.
For obama to present this to the people required him to tell a bold faced lie or he was totally misinformed. The deliberate lack of information released about the AFC before its passage causes me to believe the former.
On the average the american voter is not very complicated, when you lie to them or hurt them finacially they will punish you even if it means electing a clown for president. May god help us.
18
What he and his fans like myself failed to realize is that people do not think alike and the definition of good works is not universally recognized. One persons’ angel is another ones’ devil. We need a parliamentary system where the onus is not on one persons’ vision but is reflected in a party system and policy must be formed by multi party alliances. If the party leader is awful he can easily be replaced. Here’s hoping future Obama’s and female policy leaders are successful.
4
Republicans re controlled by big ones. Big money out spent the average American. The US has been bought.Period. Stop assuming there are equal sides to this. Its insulting to think Democrats and Republicans are two fair market brands the average citizen gets to choose. Republicans write the state legislation, write the Federal legislation, stack the courts and have the high dollar and high number of lobbyists. The Koch brothers get $1,200,000,000 in tase cuts every year from now on. Their manipulation of the system works for them, and all the others lined up to get theirs. Plutocracy best fits on one of the parties. Republicans.
2
Koch brothers are now backing Democrats along with GOP.
4
Nothing more than a gifted chameleon.
19
The media is mostly to blame. By happily overlooking the overly cautious nature of Obama and reporting it as his “somber reflection” on issues, rather than a case of paralysis by analysis, they failed to notice the flaws.
Trump’s decisive and immediate engagement of N Korea would have never happened under Obama. Trumps style is actually working. The media simply don’t want to admit it. It’s no different than how they are sticking up for Samantha Bee when the reality is had she used the C word against Michelle Obama they’d have called for her head.
15
Obama's biggest failure was not ensuring those in Wall Street, responsible for the 2008 Wall Street crash, were punished and banished. Justice was neither done nor seen to be done. From being a colossus of integrity leading with "Yes we can" he became just another politician not prepared to rock the boat of the financial masters. A monumental opportunity to secure his leadership legacy, lost because "He didn't".
16
Democrats are Wall Street.
6
There were some decisions he should have made but waffled on, and there were some decisions he should not have made but did, but that can be said for every president we have had.
He had the seeds of greatness in his hands and he planted them as a president who cared for everyone and he worked at bipartisanship. What helped was the fact that he did not hate the GOP as Trump hates every registered Democrat in America and in office within our U.S. Congress.
Yes, our Congress and not the GOP's, they keep forgetting this fact and work on their own agenda only taking a leaf from the book of Trump who is all about Trump 24/7 and who ignores the majority of Americans. He doesn't care about us and hates specific groups of us as in Americans of color, different creed and culture, Democrats, and women in authority.
4
Obama was a remarkable President, possessing great intelligence, integrity, compassion, eloquence, sense of fair play, etc. Though perhaps his one deficiency as President, but not as a person, was being too respectful, honorable and a gentleman.
In not continually using the power of his bully pulpit to express legitimate anger, tell it like it is, and educate the electorate, he was no match against the Republican unscrupulous tactics of obstruction, political circuses, character assassination, phony outrage, domination of the news cycle, etc.
Here the Nobel Peace prize stood in his way, as the most egregious war threatening the welfare and soul of our country was not being waged in Libya, Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan, but here in Congress and our statehouses.
8
Ask the dead, wounded and homeless of Libya, Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan about that Nobel Peace Prize. Ran as the "peace" candidate and then not only continued the criminal neo-con wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for his entire 8 years but expanded to Libya and Syria. Ending his presidency with the shameful distinction of longest wartime president in US history. Certainly millions of US taxpayers, including many of us who voted for him, found the abomination of Obama's continuing the wars and throwing trillions down the drain for them as an egregious threat to the welfare & soul of this country.
6
...my biggest disappointment with President Obama, was his failure to withdraw from overseas wars....he promised to.
He spent trillions, not billions, trillions, on wasted wars overseas....with nothing to show for it today.
Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan..he launched airstrikes or military raids in all of those countries.
Ms Dowd, I wonder what those trillions could have done to the decaying infrastructure in many of our cities...or to those in poverty.....
He was an eloquent, educated, family man - he was professional - I didn't agree much with his style, or many of his programs....
....but I detest, that in the end, he was a warmonger.
8
How's this for conflicted? I voted for Hilary, but blame her for Trump's victory.
Even as I voted for her, I did so because there was really no choice at all, but holding my nose, as it were.
On the plus side of the equation, she was undeniably intelligent, insightful, qualified, and experienced, and likely to enact sensible, and 'safe' legislation and policies. On that score, I had no qualms whatsoever about her.
On the other hand, there was the fabled Clinton 'messiness'. Some of this, to be sure, was the product of relentless far right targeting. Was Benghazi really a scandal? Probably not. But so much of what hurt her was self-inflicted, secondary to the arrogance and sense of entitlement that she and her husband both shared, undeniably talented though they were.
The "it's my turn" stuff is pure poison, even though the "etat c'est moi" type who currently 'rules' us is no less offensive. And it was this sense of entitlement that gave her license, in her own mind, to not do whatever she needed to in order to seal the win -- to attend that barbecue, when she really didn't feel like it; to go to Michigan and Wisconsin even though they were a lock (supposedly).
There were many factors out of Ms. Clinton's control, but she did allow herself to be out-hustled, which is unforgivable, and as a candidate, she was un-inspired, and just 'going through the motions', and visibly at a disadvantage against a preening cockatoo who genuinely loved campaigning.
9
So good for us that his policies were out and out rejected because they were badly conceived and poorly implemented. It was impossible to have any confidence in the direction of the country under his leadership (or more properly lack there of). This man had an unprecedented historic opportunity to make lasting change. He blew it - not the citizens he failed to understand, convince and unite. His policies were ill conceived, poorly prioritized and failed in nearly every measure. He left with foreign policy in a shambles, race relations much worse, fiscal policy - terrible. What was done well? Nothing - but that's our fault - really?
21
“He wanted them simply to do what he had ascertained to be right.”
Truer words have never been spoken. Obama was too politically lazy to do the hard work of convincing people. He wasn’t an effective legislator, having spent only two years in the Senate. His path to the White House was too easy. Too many people told him how smart he was. Because of this, he never developed the self-doubt that is necessary to understand when people aren’t getting your message. It’s like the teacher that scolds you about a lesson, when you just want to know why you need to learn it. It’s too bad, because he could have been a great President. Instead, he’s just a great narcissist.
28
Sure, blame Trump on Obama. Republicans, especially their Dear Leader, blame Obama for everything too.
Obama was being realistic, not elitist, when he mused that he might have been 10 or 20 years too early, just as he was clear-sighted in 2008 when he said that working-class voters in old industrial towns decimated by job losses “ . . . get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,” exactly the voters who constitute Trump’s base.
What was too early wasn’t his presidency, but any judgment of his presidency. 10 or 20 years from now historians will judge Obama as among the top half-dozen presidents in our contentious history.
8
Tough - but fair article by Maureen. Perhaps being so determined to foist Hillary on us when there were better and less corrupt politicians available (Biden and Bernie come to mind), was his biggest mistake.
7
Obama's biggest weakness was that he always thought he was the smartest man in the room. He surrounded himself with loyalists and like minded people, who had policy experience but no practical experience running anything, typically from academia or think tanks. That is why so many of his initiatives crashed and burned. The Obamacare architect even admitted that they relied on the stupidity of the American people to get Obamacare passed. Trump was the result of 8 years of Obama, people didn't like seeing America follow from behind in Foreign affairs, being taken advantage of by other countries, the economy sputtering along so weakly that the Fed was afraid to raise interest rates, higher taxes that were levied but to no benefit to the average American, spiraling health care costs and broken promises on health care in general, assassination of police officers and the list goes on and on. Yes, America was not ready for a socialist President, and I pray that it never is.
16
Obama was handed the worse economy since the Great Depression and managed to turn it around and bring the deficit down without any support from the GOP. A minor miracle actually. Obama turned over an economy that was doing well without an impending bubble and with a decreasing unemployment level.
It is a shame that Trump is riding those coat tails since he had nothing to do with it then or now. (although Trump's policies are bubble generating and will likely cause another severely deep depression in the next few years unfortunately.)
12
These comments are hilarious. Obama’s isn’t some God who can do no wrong. He is a human. And he made plenty of awful mistakes while president
17
I will never understand why people said Hillary thought she was "entitled" and called her "arrogant". Being "entitled" means you're a person who expects to get something without working for it, Hillary worked for the American people for decades before deciding to run. I suspect calling her "arrogant" has something to do with her being a woman, it might be called "ambition" a man. Perhaps she was not a humble enough woman for some people?
If you want to call someone arrogant, look at the person currently sitting in the Oval Office. As for feeling entitled, Trump has felt entitled since his birth.
17
Maureen has murdered it.
This is the best, simplest and most accurate account of what in the world brought us Donald Trump.
The president who was too good for us and the candidate that was too corrupt, combined for a shaken and stirred cocktail of political malfeasance.
12
What is interesting about these comments is the Trump supporters touting Trump’s alleged “many successes.” These are the misinformed masses that Obama was concerned about, who,buy into the looking-glass world of FOXNews and do not live in what Clinton described as an “evidence-based” world.
Passing a tax bill that already has begun disabling the middle class; walking away from the climate change accords that might have averted the effects of global warming; dumping the Iran Treaty that could thwart Iran’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons; allowing North Korea to manipulate him into a meeting for which preparations have been slim and chaotic; alienating valuable allies by his incoherent foreign policy; starting a trade war which will defeat our political interests and damage our economy; rolling back regulations that protected air-quality and preserved national resources, permitting offshore drilling that will further endanger the planet; placing the DACA kids at risk; weakening the ACA, and thereby endangering the health of tens of millions; kissing up to Putin, whose objectives are to undermine our democratic processes and economy; attacking the Justice Department, FBI and CIA-
This is only a partial list of Trump’s accomplishments: and, oh yes, the economic recovery began in the months after Obama took office and his stimulus bill and GM bailout took effect, and the actual unemployment rate remains 7.5%.
Obama is right – too many Americans live in fantasyland.
12
"Passing a tax bill that already has begun disabling the middle class" -- This is simply untrue. The 2018 tax tables don't lie. Tax rates are lower. Tax credits are higher. Phaseouts of tax benefits are higher too. The average annual property tax in the US is $3,500, so the only people disadvantaged are in wealthy, high taxed enclaves. The rest of the middle class is going to benefit.
5
"Obama did not like persuading people to do what they didn’t want to do. And that is the definition of politics."
He was awfully good at getting Americans to do one thing they really hate doing: voting.
The "hope" that got him elected over Clinton in the first place was shrewd campaigning under progressive politics, but he governed as a centrist. His very person (and name) was the most progressive thing about him. It sure felt like progress to elect a black man with the middle name Hussein, both times. And let us remember that anything remotely common sense, and competent following the Darth Cheney administration would seem real progressive in 2008. So its too bad indeed that he chose to endorse Clinton, but its not surprising, he turned out to be a centrist. And this article is not just to hate on Obama, it's to remember that middle of the road centrism is no way to make meaningful progressive change, and it does nothing to "bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice."
5
Rhodes is wrong. The neo cold war and neo McCarthyism related to the story that the Russians had meaningfully impacted the election is a plain wrong. One of the reasons Trump won is because the Democratic establishment ramrodded H. Clinton to the nomination. Since it was assumed she would win all this misbehavior by the Obama Justice Dept. on her behest would be swept under the rug. Obama's drone war and Libyan intervention certainly do not speak well to his humanity or his judgement. John Brennan's influence on Obama certainly will harm Obama's legacy. Clinton's aggressive neo con rhetoric on Syria and Russia did not excite the electorate. The surprising thing to me is the open rift between Clinton and Obama on overthrowing Assad. Obama though tarnished with his dealings with Clinton certainly is as Dowd states.
8
The Democrats lost because their analysis failed to work the weird mathematics of the Electoral College (needs to be closely based on popular vote). Up three million poplar votes, that is a lot of votes.
Winning California and New York is no biggie when you need an entire country to elect you.
1
People can disagree on Obama’s policies, his legacy and style. Fair enough. But he won two elections: the popular vote and the electoral college.
He also lifted the ethical and moral standards around him. Despite Republican’s relentless attempts they failed to uncover even a single scandal.
When the dust of history settles and social scientists can review the Obama era without the biased emotions that blind many contemporary writers, he will emerge as a tall historic figure who set the tone for a new direction in politics, based on scientific evidence, rational decision making and impeccable ethical conduct.
20
Whatever
Who is going to run in 2020 is the question.
Who is the leader of the Party?
Who will people get to vote for?
This core rhetorical question is why so many articles like this one are written.
There is no one to run in 2020 who can win and it is not too early to be focused on this.
The writers across the Country cannot write about this.
It would be too much of a spotlight.
6
Nice clickbait, NYT. When the article was first published it had the original title, but then changed to "Obama's Mistakes"...which gets more clicks, of course...
But the main point is the media needs to stop attacking progressive leaders under the guise of "fair and balanced" conversations. This just undermines good leadership.
15
When one reads comments like Donegal, it is obvious the redundant message of all the trash talk against Trump is becoming boring. This is what Democrats do the tearing down because they have nothing to offer the American People. It does not matter if some accusations are "alleged". Compare Trumps' words of grabbing a woman's genitalia to Bill Clinton's rape charges molesting and abusing at least 11 women. He paid Paula Jones off writing check for over $700,000. Racist charges are so overblown. Not all those on the right are Nazis freaks. The media ignored when Trump two days after the Chancellorsville incident made clear he condemned the thugs on the right. If one does any "search," the same accusations with the same wording can be found on many other websites. Look at the results and not the same old story. Boring.
9
Maureen, You have had it in for the Clintons, especially Hillary, for years. What is your problem? Did she snub you at some meeting? Your comments have been continually irrational and unsound.
22
What's happened to Maureen Dowd? She hardly ever writes anymore; not like Krugman, who's in there practically every day pitching strikes. Maybe she thinks that when she obliges us with her cleverness it is enough to write barely more than an 8th grade homework assignment; and not too much more illuminating to boot. Come on NYTimes; time make room for a new voice.
28
As usual, Maureen Dowd nails it. She has the ability to see clearly through the idolatry and fawning fog of messianic worship. Obama thought he could overcome the same fault that doomed Icarus - clearly he could not. He believed his own press like most fools.
12
A spot-on Column by Ms. Dowd. The United States of America was wasted by Barack's eight (8) years in the White House.
12
Sorry, lefties of all flavors. This is still America. Deal with it.
7
Only a cynic could twist what Obama said into a column like this. Surprised you didn't add your past disrespect by calling Obama, Barry.
Rampant cynicism is part of the reason we have Trump in White House.
Good job, Ms. Dowd, queen of the poison pen.
7
You continual and constant attacks on Pres. Obama are misplaced and do nothing to right the wrong of the 2016 election. STOP looking backward and do something constructive to stop the dangerous narcissist in the White House.
12
Absolutely. 0bama needed a better electorate . the USA wasn't good enough for him, and never will be , and he wasn't ashamed to let us know. He will be seen as historic - the first non-white president.
2
Excuse me as i gag myself to sleep.. I will count the grains of sand and stars and hairs on my navel and contemplate deep and eternal truths to lull myself to a contented nights rest.
“Maybe people just want to fall back into their tribe.”
That's funny. One of the main platforms of the progressive left that is now in complete control of the democrat party is intersectionality (excuse me, diversity). Everybody has to be identified and categorized to determine what tribe they belong to. Obama and his progressive handlers (Valerie Jarrett) spent eight years very effectively dividing this country. His tenure wasn't about bring us together. That was the big lie. It was about the progressive dream to tear this country (that they loathe) apart. So they can then rebuild it into their socialist utopia. Too bad we didn't understand what the real function of a community organizer is. We were fooled.
8
I don't care about Obama, Trump, Clinton, nor any previous president nor politicians who ran for President. They're just people. Stop the cult worship and you'll free yourself from the let down. Maybe all you nitwits should start electing politicians similar to how you would hire a plumber, contractor, finance advisor, etc and we'd get better results
10
Mo the Snark is back ! I cannot say we missed her much, but in a way it is refreshing to see that her animus toward everything Clinton and her condescending judgment of President Obama (why did she not call him Barry this time?) are in no way allayed by the wreckage of this country's institutions by the clown car residing in the White House and Capitol Hill .
To list President Obama's "failures" without once mentioning the role that Republican congressmen and senators played in blocking most of his legislative program leads me to suspect that Mo has spent too much time with her benighted brother Kevin swilling vast amounts of trumpian Koolaid .
This column also gave the opportunity to a couple of Bernie bros to repeat the same silly fallacies that 1) the Democratic Party stole the nomination from their hero and 2) he would have won if nominated . Suck it up, guys, he lost !
In the end, I have to agree with another post in this comment section that the election of trump is proof that President Obama simply was too good for too many Americans .
8
Down is completely wrong as Obama did more damage to this country short and long term than any president in my lifetime. Racial division is off scale, liberalism has wrecked families, created a welfare state, his foreign policy was deeply flawed and wrong on every single action he took, the economy was in the tank for 8 years of his miserable presidency and he doubled the total national debt . Government regulations were being printed by the thousands. And why? Because he was a Socialist ideologue who never had a real job in his life and was elected because he was black. I suspect that he was in on the illegal spying on Trump and this absurd Russian nonsense because his ego refuses to admit that his 8 years were an utter failure.
10
I had to read this at breakfast?
I'm about to hurl.
10
Just when I thought Maureen was evolving, she attacks Hillary Clinton again. Obama was right on the tribe thing. Some people just can’t learn and choose to stay in their tribes. An intelligent writer should be better than that. The gist of these columns is always lost in the pettiness.
8
Respectfully submitted, but this is complete liberal hubris.
Can the NYT readership now understand why the majority of the country (i.e. those outside of the bi-coastal liberal-elitist echo chamber) will alway reject the "we know what's good for you, even though you may not" attitude that someone like Maureen Dowd ~ and the NYT editorial staff ~ may peddle?
Obama too good for us... really? Jefferson, Lincoln, Reagan, maybe. But certainly not Obama...
8
Sigh ... she does not think Obama was too good for us. She was criticizing him.
5
DW, good observation, but I did appreciate that Maureen Down was sarcastically criticizing Obama. However my reaction to the piece remains the same ~ more "holier than thou" liberal elitism from her and the NYT editorial page, where the people outside of the enclaves "just don't get it" regarding the enlightened progressivism that they should be clearing for. It comes across as more liberal navel-gazing, I respectfully suggest...
Exactly.
3
No sense in this column of the urgency of the moment. Just more snarky put downs of Obama and Hilary. The time for that is over. It is 2018 and Donald Trump is president of the United States. Wake up Maureen!
6
What is the meaning of Obama? Quite simply it is the crime, the trial and the execution of Liberalism in America. Liberal is a religion of Man for Man. It is utopian. It rejects the inherent weakness of human nature. It rejects God who is the answer to fallen man. Liberalism is blind. It is the blind leading the blind. No wonder it fell into a ditch. It knows not what is good for itself or others. It is a complete failure.
5
And Trump is an angel of light and goodness? There is a fine line between Obama hate and unfettered racism. Sometimes that line completely disappears.
3
This column is a Big Lie and is incredibly offensive to me.
5
Gosh, Maureen, you mean that Trump is right? It really is all Obama's fault? Shame on you, sad.
6
Your words were vile today. Question. When do you start at Fox?
13
Mo, good people wil never forgive you and they shouldn,'t.
5
Dowd's latest tiresome display of her neurotic hate of Hillary Clinton reminded me of a little aphorism about the alt-right. "With the alt-right if it is not a lie it is a deliberate deflection and distraction from the topic and the truth." Deflecting from a specious character assassination of President Obama, spiced with sophomoric irony, Dowd obsessively-compulsively goes after her real target, Hillary to distract and demonize yet again instead of offering us some news that is new.
Maybe Dowd should make a nation-wide tour with giant banners and tee-shirts with the slogan "I obsessively hate Hillary" for the few Americans that don't already know it.
16
You know Maureen, you are like the Puritans and the evangelicals. Not only are you miserable, but you want everyone else to be miserable, too. Lighten up, you might find that you enjoy it.
11
Thankfully, these are just the rambling opinions of a woman that should be out on a ledge somewhere. You should really get some help with that blue pill and Kool-Aid problem you have Maureen. I'm sure all your nasty liberal friends call you Ms. Dowd don't they.
1
This is beyond pathetic.
3
Obama is too good for your columns.
8
Maureen always gets points for her writing style.
But as an observer she is an incredible failure.
She has been in and around NY for decades and yet failed to know how dangerous Trump is (something the overwhelming majority of NYers without NY Times columns know!)
She also was in and around Hollywood folks for decades and didn’t know anything about Weinstein.
So clever to write about what others write. But how about doing some actual work with your own eyes?
6
As usual, the comments on this article reflect sanity better that Maureen's article.
10
It's hard to remain hopeful when everything you try is blocked by an obstinate minority, that is incapable of compromise, and determined to prevent any and all legislation from passing. The minority then became the majority and perpetuated the lie that they were the party of fiscal responsibility, and that was why they blocked all of Obama's agenda. We see now just how fiscally responsible the Party of God is; ballooning the deficit so their cronies can skim more of America's wealth from the lower and middle classes. Once again, a disingenuous hit piece from Madam Dowd, pretending to be reasonable, when she is just another political hack. Once again the NYT disappoints with its "balanced" editorial policies.
4
The arrogant elitism of the Left is infinite.
You people full are of yourself. You really are not as above the common person as you think you are in your bubble.
Obama could have been a good president, but he wasn't. He could have healed divides, but he divided instead. He could have been the post racial president but he chose to stoke the fires of bigotry.
I was aware of his America hating Marxist lean, yet gave him 6 months benefit of the doubt after election...hoping his election would finally mend the Black American plight and give them rise and pride with progress. He made it worse, and it was clear within that 6 months that this was his goal. He is an America Destroyer...he hates this country...except for the academic elites...the arrogant who read and buy in to this tripe.
Black Americans are now experiencing the lowest unemployment since the statistic was recorded. That's not because of Obama...it is despite him.
Obama continues to damage this nation with Organizing For Action. An agitating cabal still pulling the strings of the Swamp and the urban stench of elitism. It is the only reason he stayed in DC, but to his shock, instead of manipulating a Clinton Presidency, he got the middle finger of a Trump election, and a thankful nation that he did.
11
"We just weren’t ready for his amazing awesomeness."
--Maureen Dowd
At first, I thought this was tongue in cheek. An illustration of the utter egotism and blind arrogance of this little man who did so much harm. But as shocking as it may seem, she is dead serious. She really means that "we just weren't ready for his amazing awesomeness". I could honestly fwow up. This is the mindset, people. This is the mindset of the press. The Worshippers of the One.
10
Well, Lisa, now we have Trump.
Wow. Even though I am familiar with Ms. Dowd's pointless but entertaining exercises in armchair analysis, she is only one or two sentences away from describing President Obama as an "uppity Negro".
8
This sentence: But by the end of his second term, he had lost the narrative about lifting up people, about buoying them on economic issues and soothing their jitters about globalization. They needed to know, what’s in it for them?"
You know what is in it for them? Liberalism makes everyone equally miserable.
When he said "we are 5 days from transforming the United States of America" I knew exactly what he meant so I still do not understand how you and so many others heard something different from what I heard. What are you guilty of? Remember now....he was the man to manage the decline. The jobs were never coming back. What was Trump going to do? Shake his magic wand? Yep he said that and he gets no credit for what is happening. He had 8 years and was given a pass on everything.
He openly lied many times and was never called out on it. If you disagreed with anything this man did or said you were a racist...heck if you did not vote for him you were a racist. And if you think he divided this country more than it has been in 50 years you are a racist. I am tired of being called a racist by the left. It has nothing to with skin color but it does to you.
The biggest lie is that conservatives are racist. Liberals are the true racist.
12
"He had eight years and was given a pass on everything." - you
"The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” - Mitch McConnell, 2010
“One of my proudest moments was when I looked at Barack Obama in the eye and I said, ‘Mr. President, you will not fill this Supreme Court vacancy.’” - also Mitch McConnell, 2016.
A pass? I think not.
1
One visit to Englewood, the worst ghetto of Chicago, will explain why Obama doesn't walk on water in this region of the USA. Even with other black people. First, Obama reminded the black voting bloc of its centuries-old obsession with gradations of color: the lighter the skin tone, the higher the status. Because in the bad old slave days that no one alive now remembers, children of white and black parents were the most valued chattel. Obama did nothing to quell the raging black-on-black homicide epidemic in the city of Chicago. We are still treated to lurid headlines on a daily basis to let us know it's not safe to venture to large areas of that very large American city. Even as a law enforcement officer, I don't like to go to the badlands for any reason. Obama belonged to the large finance segment and his saving the US economy in 2008 was largely orchestrated by the Fed and the chairman of Goldman Sachs. When I see him walking atop the water of Lake Michigan on his next visit here, then I will agree with his being too good for us...
11
Mo showcases her true colors every week, and it's not pretty. Tell us, oh wise one, who is your optimal choice for President of these United States? Who is good enough to meet your lofty standards?
1
Dowd and her temperamental twin Donald Trump shows her true colors in this column. Like the harpies from Greek Mythology she is driven to steal the bounty of her nemesis. Her prompt is Ben Rhodes’s personal reflections of life inside the Obama White House. Like Trump, Dowd freaks out when someone views Obama positively. Her own insecurity and crass persona is on full display here. Much like each of Trump’s tweets. The effect of her shrillness and the Donald’s is that it releases the narrow-minded, anti-intellectual Trolls who now have friends at The NY Times and in the White House. SAD!
6
It really is time to dump Ms. Dowd - who is constantly acting out her personal psychodrama with the Clintons and Obamas in prime space at the New York Times. Is anyone in the editorial department paying attention? It's just vile, mad junk, without any news or commentary value whatsoever. Someone in the room show some dignity!
8
I was wondering when Ms. Dowd would renew her bashing President Obama. I am sure her too few critical columns on Trump have sent his supporters and her family against her. It is far safer to heap criticism on an honest, decent, cool president rather than a lying bullying one who can challenge her and treat her as he dos other women. Nice going, Maureen.
9
There are a huge number of smart and accurate comments criticizing Dowd here. Some go on at great length, reflecting not only skillful writing but incisive thinking. Other than her column's length, Dowd shares none of these attributes. Her analysis - if that what you want to call it -- can be summed up in a cliche: "Haters gonna hate." Especially intrasegently defensive haters.
7
Oops. I haven’t read a Dowd column in months. But this one looked enlightening. Of course here we are barely three paragraphs in and she is back to trashing Hillary Clinton. I’m done. I vow to never read a Dowd column again. Maybe someone should do a study of her columns and see how often they trash a Clinton. It’s old, it’s boring and it’s biased.
12
About the only good Dowd serves in this life is when she is lampooning republican troglodytes and the cheap crooks who surround them. When she turns here hateful pen on the decent and well-intentioned, she is a terrible propagandist for evil. If there were a truly judging God, this woman would be heading straight for Gehenna, where she belongs.
4
Pitiful. Maureen participates in the pretensions she scorns. (And really she ought to switch out that silly pompous picture of hers. No one goes to you for insight Maureen. We read you for laughs.)
The plain facts are that BO was perceived by the majority (slight as it may be) of voters, as an incompetent. And his race unfortunately got wrapped into the mix. The lesson because it was so large and tragic may be undoable. His narcissism made it all the more tragic, or comic, depending on the distance you view it from. His followers cannot see that, because they partake of the same narcissism and misguided idealism--a fact Ms Dowd's article demonstrates; when she gently mocks the messiah, she mocks herself and the clan.
6
Just what is it you want? You have been spitting in Obama’s face for 11-12 years. The evidence of his greatness is usually sprinkled throughout your rants on his unworthiness but you always seem to turn his virtues into sins.
Obama was the best of us.
Half of America rejected his legacy and elected a racist, thug.
You repeatedly demonstrate the same fears and jealousies of the Trump half by rejecting Obama for all the characteristics that make him extraordinary.
I’ll keep reading you. I’ll keep trying to understand. I won’t simply surrender the future to haters whether they write for the NYTimes or sport Confederate flags on their pick-ups.
11
What are you trying to impart, Ms. Dowd (appeaser)?
So wise Ms Dowd in hindsight Wish that wisdom was more prescient
5
Obviously Dowd was short of material, because goodness knows nothing is happening at the White House . “ oh wait , how about a hit job on Obama and of course chuck in Hillary for good measure” ....boring but at least it wasn’t written by her brother, as far as we know.
4
There's a case study used by the Harvard Business School involving a chief executive officer who, despite having led a very successful company, was dismissed by his board of directors. The reason? He failed to develop a succession plan, a vital task for all leaders. By not grooming a successor who could carry on his work, Obama doomed his legacy.
7
This, at least, is something of a fair criticism.
Those of the Left tend to think in terms of "we;" those of the right tend to think in terms of "I." The problem is that the Left seems determined to force everyone into their "we," thereby largely precluding "I," while the individuals of the Right are perfectly content--indifferent, actually--if some people want to get together as a "we" while leaving all the "I" people free to do their own thing.
It's not that Obama is "too good for us," it's that he's too different from half of us. He's a "we" guy and just doesn't get it that half of us don't have much interest in being made just a cog in a crowd of "we." It's not that Obama was "10 or 20 years too early," it's that half of us will never tolerate being dragooned into a "we," especially a "we" whose values we not only don't share but whose values are, in varying degrees and ways, positively repellent to us.
America is far too big and diverse to be crammed into one huge "we," but that seems to be what the Left wants. If the largely urban Left wants to make a "we" of their cities, cool. But that's never going to fly in fly-over country where "I" reigns supreme.
6
Obama was never that smart, he was always that smarmy.
14
"As president, Obama always found us wanting. We were constantly disappointing him. He would tell us the right thing to do and then sigh and purse his lips when his instructions were not followed."
Ya know, Maureen, your column today is just plain snotty.
4
"As president, Obama always found us wanting. We were constantly disappointing him. He would tell us the right thing to do and then sigh and purse his lips when his instructions were not followed."
Ya know, Maureen, your column today is just plain snotty.
19
Maureen Dowd just plain doesn't want it to be that Obama could be right about anything. Think about the many columns about Obama that she wrote while he was president. She always went after him like she was a terrier and he was her toy. She may have written column or two praising him, but I sure don't recall it.
Why this piece now? I mean, we're looking at a monster who poses the greatest threat to the Republic ever, and she feels the need to dredge up some moping idea about Obama's putative arrogance?
I'm thinking the only explanation is that was excluded from Obama White House parties.
10
Dowd's chief complaint is that Obama was and is less than perfect.
7
Sounds like she's hoping for a "come to Jesus" tweet from agent orange.
4
So the author choses to use Rhodes' book as her source. A key Obama advisor that openly boasts of his success in playing the gullible and naïve modern "journalist" by telling them what they want to hear and believe.
2
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people". Tiny minds waste their column discrediting everyone.
15
Who knew Dowd's bag of snark was so large? She has an endless number of ways to diss President Obama and Secretary Clinton, but this most recent one is over the top. Dowd has abandoned false equivalency. Her new level of debasement blames intelligence, excellence, dignity, and ethics for giving the world Donald Trump.
Perhaps in her next column she can explain that having someone like Mr. Trump--with all his warts, lies, indignities, and greed--is actually a good thing.
The clever Ms. Dowd is using the evangelicals' argument without once invoking God and God's will. Clever indeed, a most excellent way to stand up for the deplorable.
6
Obama doesn't come off well in Dowd's latest piece. And yet he sparkles and shines when compared to HRC in the same piece. Skippy Bush et al belong in the same corral of contempt as HRC. Liberal elites, conservative elites seeming antonyms yet more likely just Animal Farm swine of Harvard/Yale grads too overconfident. Creatures who greatest trait is their obtuseness. Creatures without discernment.
3
"Obama - Just too good for us" I'm certain Obama would agree with you, Maureen.
3
Really? Let's bash Obama? Really?
4
You're right Maureen. You aren't good enough for someone like Obama.
13
Maureen deliberately distorts several things in this oped or my favorite, Peter Baker, did in his article. Obama thought he might be 10 or 20 years too soon bc of his blackness, not his awesomeness! Peter did not write awesome! No worries, You & Obama never respected each other. It happens, so bless your heart, Maureen.
4
Finish the Shakespeare, Maureen, “if we are underlings.” In your column, you have misrepresented both Obama and Hillary Clinton. She made clear her economic policies both on the road and in her book, “What Happened.” The media wasn’t covering her, too intent on covering every last tweet and rally rant from Trump, much to Putin’s delight as he filled Facebook with distorted ads against her.
As far as “Barry” as you unaffectionately label him, there is a morality and integrity inherent in his character, wanting the American public to use their minds and hearts to do the right action of their own volition, not to browbeat or bully them.
I’m beginning to think that your appellation should be Mo the Red, and not because of your hair color, but because in columns like this, you empower haters of Democrats and democracy. Shame on you, Mo, because you know that a Trump is destroying America. Write about that instead of, like a Trump, acting as if Barry and Hillary are still running. Look to the angels of your better nature?
19
What angels?
5
Dear Maureen - how do you choose your topics? Do you have blinders on to shut out what your favored candidate spews out. Do you not wake up, like the rest of us, day after day, wondering how uncouth, dishonest, self-serving, abusive, disruptive, and law-breaking does Trump have to be before all our leaders say enough? Do you not worry about all the victims in Trump's path?
I guess not. Instead you grab onto one sentence by Obama and fill up a whole column. You have the ability to speak up and for thousands. You have a voice that can reach millions. In this time and in this place your words are a waste of time....
12
@ NA Bangerter. The words are not merely a waste of time. They’re a waste of the human spirit.
This deifying of Obama's intellect is farcical.
If his intellect was in the stratosphere and we poor mortals
were just too intellectually uncouth to absorb his high mindedness, then surely the fault lies with the teacher, Obama. But let us look at the evidence: The Obama's appeared starry eyed around Hollywood types, (always a measure of stupidity) and gladly trousered their 'donations'. And the stranger than fiction Dad Obama allowing his daughter to be an Intern with a 'Hollywood' Foundation' and Michelle Obama referring to Harvey Weinstein as a '...wonderful human being' Oops. 'Such naive, starry eyed stupidity beggars belief. If Obama was so smarts why did he not rein in his wife and her simplistic gushings of 'We go high while you go low'; if so smart surely advise your partner against doing the Karaoke spot on television with James Corden because it offends the dignity of office? (Alright call me a cultural snob). But you have to be really 'educated' (Harvard/Princeton) to be that stupid. There is something profoundly unattractive in the measured guile of the 'educated'; the 'talkers'. The US voters saw beneath the faux sincerity, the protective cordon sanitaire which such 'educated' types build to section themselves off, 'Only connect' E M Forster urged. if only the oh so intelligent
Obama had heeded that, but he didn't connect and the US Electorate finally realised it, which is evidence of how long blinkered misunderstanding of what 'intelligence' is, takes.
’
7
Obama lost the narrative, huh? And here I thought he fell victim to the Republican congress and their “do anything to make him fail” mentality.
And then people in the media, like you, focused all your attention on Trump (and on knocking Hillary down) and the ratings it brought you.
Perhaps the fault lies not in the stars, and not in ourselves, but in smug opportunists like you, Ms. Dowd.
13
What happened to you Ms. Dowd, that you have chosen to be a victim of life rather than a survivor?
3
In other words, we should blame Obama for electing a person who mocked a disabled reporter, spoke proudly of grabbing a woman's genitalia and was the founding father of the conspiratorial birther movement?
5
Ah!! There’s the Maureen Dowd that we didn’t miss. The snark must have built up for months and months before she just gave in...
7
And we're back to 2008 when Maureen Dowd was Barack Obama's number one cheerleader!! So what if the rest of America didn't know anything about him? Ms. Dowd lectured America that Obama was a young handsome up and coming African American politician who wasn't some dreary Democratic establishment stooge. Add a couple of catchy slogans like "Yes We Can." and "Hope and Change" and you've got yourself a presidential candidate straight out of central casting. Seriously, what's not to like??? Supporting Obama was as simple as ABC--Anybody But Clinton. (Hillary that is)
2
Maureen , we have had quite enough of your bashing of Barack Obama
Interesting that is your chosen subject for the week, a week that saw the brouhaha about Rosanne Barr and Samantha Bee, the pardon of Dnesh Dsouza, tariffs and trade wars with trusted allies. the on again summit wth North Korea
I think a lot of us miss Barack Obama
I don't think many of us will miss you
25
Also the week that the NYT revealed a letter from Trump's lawyers that essentially says Trump is above the law.
3
Please - too good (M. Dowd); too smart (V. Jarrett). Maybe we're too smart for Obama.
Obama wanted the USA to share much of its wealth with Third World countries; to protect the EU with our tax dollars.
Those of us who looked at Forbes list of the wealthiest in the world saw that many of the world's greatest fortunes are in the older EU nations: Arnault (France) LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton; Amancio Ortega (Spain), the world's wealthiest retailer ; Bettencourt (France) L'Oreal.
In Europe, the number of billionaires increased slightly to 489 from 482 a year ago. Germany led the continent yet again, with 120 billionaires. France has 39 billionaires. The UK has 50 billionaires.
Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Austria, Italy are all represented in the triple-comma club: three commas to write out their wealth. So are Mexico, China, India, Malaysia, S. America, the oil-rich nations in Africa.
Obama wanted USA wealth for climate change - when the UN head of climate change said climate change was for wealth transfer to Third World nations.
Obama wanted TPP - when parts of the USA still suffer from NAFTA and the loss of over a million jobs.
Obama followed Bush 43 on crooked bankers. Bush said "too big to jail - don't be the banks of crooks/criminals"; Obama said "too big to jail - don't do it again, then "don't do it again, again".
Only one Democrat stands out when discussing people: Tip O'Neill: "All politics is local." Right!
7
Climate change is real. Goldman Sachs' building in lower Manhattan was the only one with power after Superstorm Sandy. Why? These gatekeepers of America's wealth are smart enough to see that - so they put the generators high enough in the building to withstand the flood waters that will continue to come. Let's see how America's wealth does under the trade wars that are being ginned up right now.
Agree - climate change is real. But climate change is always ongoing, as evidenced by the NY Times articles on global cooling in the early '70s.
But climate change with global warming has been co-opted by wealth redistribution:
"First, taken from a 1996 IPCC report summary written by B.D. Santer et al “…there is evidence of an emerging pattern of climate response to forcings by greenhouse gases and sulphate aerosols…from geographical, seasonal and vertical patterns of temperature change…These results point towards human influence on climate.”
Then, a 1996 publication “The Holocene”, by T.P. Barnett, B.D. Santer, P.D. Jones, R.S. Bradley and K.R. Briffa, says this: “Estimates of…natural variability are critical to the problem of detecting an anthropogenic [human] signal…Until…resolved, it will be hard to say, with confidence, that an anthropogenic climate signal has or has not been detected.”
IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer, speaking in November 2010, advised that: “…one has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. Instead, climate change policy is about how we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth...”
Subordinating climate science to ideology = that's what has happened.
Dowd: GR8 sarcasm. But in Realville USA, Obama's policies dragged down (to say the LEAST) our entire country, INCLUDING minorities and women.
6
Maureen would be absolutely lost if she couldn't bash Obama and Hillary.
9
Maureen, I like you, but I really wish that you would lay off B. Obama and H. Clinton. They are yesterday's news. And since most of us voted for Obama and for Clinton, most of us were ready for the audacity of hope and for the continuation of that hope. Obama was shackled by a racist and obstinate Congress and wasn't about to become the Dictator that Trump aspires to become. H. Clinton made some awful mistakes during her campaign, mistakes that I, a complete plebe, wouldn't have made. Nonetheless, she won the popular vote, would have been a much finer president than the embarrassing bozo we have in office now, and we wouldn't be having half of the craziness that we have now. Even Trump knows that.
8
It's revealing how Obama is seen by the fawning class of elites, including those who write adoring columns in places like the NY Times. Ms. Dowd is clearly among the Obama adorants.
Treating this man as an almost spiritual icon is comical if not heretical. Obama was mostly a conman who had plenty of sass and gall. He very clearly held America in contempt. His brand of higher values was a joke. He was the most elite of anyone on the planet.
He was a man who achieved the ultimate prize and was bent on flaunting it for maximum return. He gave the ultimate disrespect and disdain to America. In particular, he was deceitful to black America. He left America in the dirt while he and his tribe are ridinghigh.
America doesn't look back on Obama with misty eyes. It looks back at that time with the realization it had been taken to the cleaners and has a new resolve to see it doesn't ever happen again.
7
Obama...The Worst President in modern times!!!! Love you Progressives and your logic!!!
3
Nah.... ya got it wrong Maureen. Obama won because he charmed the masses, Trump won because Obama revealed his true self while in office and the people never wanted Socialism and Globalism.
7
@ Tones. The people don’t have any idea what they want. They wouldn’t know socialism if it hit them over the head (or if it came in the mail with their Social Security check). They couldn’t define globalism if you handed them a dictionary. The people, ripe for picking in their bottomless anger, want what the oligarchy’s propaganda machine, led by Fox, tells them to want. But they wouldn’t want it even then if, deep in their souls, they weren’t already intellectually vacant, morally bankrupt, and racist in the bargain. It doesn’t matter if five states were stolen by corrupt voting machines. It doesn’t matter how many votes were swayed by Russian bots. It doesn’t matter how many votes were suppressed by the Republican machine. The deplorables did vote for him and they shall reap what they have sown. Unfortunately, so will the rest of us.
2
So, Obama was elected into a situation with a fully even playing field and just bungled the whole thing? Just kind of an uppity black man who thought he was so smart but wasn't?
The rank and overt, as well as concealedand unconscious biases and bigotry that our Congress and public are awash in apparently weren't factors that affected the outcomes of his presidency. Yeah, right. Maureen, get thyself to a Starbucks staff training asap.
8
What I glean from Ms. Dowd's column today is that Obama was a defective and egotistical president who thought he was too good for us; and that Hilary Clinton, per usual, is the perpetual baddie, being out of touch with the electorate as her original sin. Somehow I don't think these accounts are either fair or accurate. This is more like a Hollywood gossip column, as so much of Maureen's writing is of late, than authoritative and insightful journalism. I miss the old Maureen, who was so good at calling out the real Washington villains. "Sad".
6
America was not worthy of the Lightworker
1
Are you high again, Maureen?
6
That is the strangest op-ed I think I have ever read.
Maureen Dowd, you need to focus.
America is in trouble, and President Obama is not the cause
(nor is your favorite punching bag, Hillary Clinton).
20
@ Aaron Bertram. People only focus if they care about what’s happening.
Obama set race relations back 30 years. On that alone, he's in the same stratosphere as Jimmy Carter as the worst president in modern history.
THANK GOD FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP!
7
Infatuation and delusion.
2
I'm not sure of the real theme of Ms. Dowd's opinion piece. At first I thought it tongue in cheek, but she's actually being critical of Pres. Obama for being too aloof, introspective, intellectual, enlightened, hopeful, etc., etc.
Barack Obama had/has all these attributes and more, including flaws, which made/make him human and real. Barack Obama held us up to ourselves and reflected that we were better than we thought and could do great and unselfish acts for the good of all.
Of course, there are always those who decry their own status and want to blame others for what they lack. President Obama made us realize that each of us could rise above wherever we came from and do it with grace and intelligence.
Barack Obama showed us that prejudices often stem from ignorance and he asked us to rise above ignorance.
Ignorance should be a four letter word in our culture, ignorance keeps us down and instills anger, hatred and violence. We've now entered an era where anger, hatred and violence are condoned at the very top of our government, where ignorance is lauded as making America great again.
Barack Obama was rare and unique, we'll probably not see another remotely like him for a generation or more. We'll need to dig ourselves out of our current morass and bring civility back before we can move ahead to a place were we're secure with intelligence, compassion, equality and generosity of pocket book and spirit.
Maureen is usually spot on, this time, not so much.
1
In short, President Obama never really left the cloistered, tenured, Halls of Ivy, where rhetoric reigns supreme in non-pragmatic majors and, "what if" supplants the work to get an idea to fruition and productive status. I heard him once say on TV, "My main concern about an issue is, 'Did I get the policy right'?". Uh, not really, imho. Policies that don't require a lot of personal responsibility and honesty of the target audience are seldom productive and often expensive and hurt more than they help.
6
Two years after the Trump election, and Dems and progressives are *still* wringing their hands over 2016 instead of correcting course for 2020 and the decade beyond. If they can't look to the future, maybe they -- and all people of progressive persuasion, myself included -- don't deserve to win.
2
Excellent analysis. This is why Trump is President of the United States.
5
Assuming that Joe Biden would have run, he would have been the better choice. When Hillary's candidacy was swept away in 2008 by a relative unknown, this should have told somebody something. As for the legacy of Barack Obama, I don't think we can fault him for being too good for the deplorables. It is a sad reflection on the US that a significant minority would choose greed and malice even when the other option was somewhat flawed.
1
His greatest flaw was enormous intellectual pride. He never could admit that he, himself, made a mistake. the words "I failed when I did..." were impossible.
And in the end he out did his predecessor in drone strikes, deportations, and impositions of the surveillance state,
4
I hear Glory Days by Bruce Springsteen. They've passed our author by. We're back to rehashing the topic that animated her literary denouement. Any little opening and she'll seize it.
“And do you think,” Obama replied, “that the type of people reading that stuff were going to listen to me?”
That's the problem. Seeing other people as "types". Obama too has a tribe and it shows up when he's pushed away from the best-me narrative and forced to reveal more. The only reason Obama might have been too early is, perhaps, because he wasn't yet as inclusive as he thought.
In education, we (should) learn that we must move away from "types". If we saw our individual students as part of a group and not as unique learners, the effects would be profoundly destructive, and probably have been in many cases. We face groups of people, often quite different than ourselves, and we must wonder how to help raise them up, no matter if we don't "like" them. So to me, this conversation we're allegedly having on both race and politics is so deeply flawed, it's painful. We are not really willing to allow differences to exist peacefully while working for a better whole. We just want our teams/types to win.
3
All I know is that when Obama was President and I travelled abroad, I was proud to be an American.
Now, when I travel, I wear a TransCanada cap, so that people who hear my accent will assume I'm Canadian.
5
When you look back at Obama I think that is greatest weakness is that he didn't fully understand that the economic structure he endorsed was failing. Obama never really worked in the private sector or really understood what was happening to working people in their daily lives. Obama believed in globalization and neo liberal economics while its failures were becoming obvious to all. Hillary also was blind to that reality and it cost her the election, it cost Obama a legacy.
4
The usual carping from Ms. Dowd, who apparently feels the need to distance herself from her own feelings of admiration for a man who is her intellectual equal, at ease with his family and friends, and got himself elected twice.
It would hardly be unusual for this President to be shaken to his very foundation by Trumps election, and question whether he was in some way responsible. Everyone of us—except for Ms. Dowd—had the same conversation with friends after Nov. 8th, 2016.
The only thing we ought to blame ourselves for, is thinking that no one would dare try to use Being A White Person as an organizing principle for a Presidential run. It was our apparent disdain for being politically correct and the Republican Party’s cowardice In a uniform condemnation of the man who pretended not to know who David Duke is, rather than supporting Hillary Clinton as the better alternative—the better move politically for the GOP’s survival and prosperity, not to mention true leverage against a Democratic President.
Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court, Obamacare muddling along, and pretty much the same National Security outcomes and compromises on Coal and Nuclear and Immigration that HRC would be all to willing to make in exchange for abandoning their 20% of hardcore racists, and replacing them with former centrist Democrats, and Hispanic voters —would have been a bargain.
The only question that remains is has it all just descended into permanent tribal chaos?
Is it possible he was referring to being a minority, working to resolve underlying civil and social issues? When healthcare was 'rammed down their throats,' republicans in congress simply shutdown, and then stiff-armed his every move - stoking a cultural war.
That resulting backlash seems to have set us back to the '60s. Selfishness, hate, and blaming 'those people' appear to now be a huge hidden theme for the republican agenda. That didn't feel like case before Obama.
The first President to win a Peace Prize and then bomb seven countries also saw racial relations measurably deteriorate while overseeing the most insipid recovery since WWII. President Obama's failed foreign policy left a trail of hundreds of thousands of dead Arabs and millions of refugees. Black Americans' incomes, home ownership rates, and wealth declined relative to those of whites under Obama. Flim-flam executive agreements regarding DACA, global warming, and Iran were substituted for constitutional treaties and congressional legislation are now under attack. The $10T of new federal debt President Obama accumulated amounts to $30,000 per typical American family; an economic ball and chain on our children. The privileged elites floated above some of this and might be excused for waxing nostalgic. Some other Americans, however, are more attracted to lower taxes and record low unemployment.
6
I would never blame the Obama presidency for the defeat of sec. Hillary Clinton (HC) if that is what I sense the article is trying to convey. I think the biggest mistake of the Obama presidency was appointing HC as the SoS. If he had not done that, there were would not have been additional regime changes operations in Libya, Yemen and Syria. There would have been no ISIS, there would have been no devastation of the cradle of civilization, there would not have been bombardment of homes of those residing in the cradle of civilization and the misery and epic migration of millions to Europe and N. America. There would have been no email scandal, no Clinton Foundation pay for play perception.
Obama could have appointed HC as the secretary of Health and Human services and may be he could have had a more sustainable and successful affordable version of Obamacare with public option in place. But he probably did not do that because he feared it would have been called Clintoncare and threaten his legacy.
Until sec. Kerry came along Obama foreign policy was floundering and after Kerry, there were some very important developments, the Iran deal, the Cuba normalization and the strategic partnership with India which even Trump has been building on while scraping the Iran deal and marginalizing the Cuba normalization
Considering the ferocious criticism Trump has received some of it constructive, Obama was not a beneficiary of the same level of constructive criticism while in office.
5
But. Mr. Obama viewed everything through a racially polarized lens.
And that, dear friends, is my definition of racism, however faint.
Mr. Obama had the opportunity to bring folks together, much like Governor Douglas Wilder of Virginia accomplished.
But he failed.
6
"we’d run against Hillary eight years ago with the same message Trump had used: She’s part of a corrupt establishment that can’t be trusted to change.”.....THEN OBAMA not only backed her 2016 election efforts, but went whole-hog in his support with Airforce One and all government owned assets at his disposal.
8
The SS COLA unofficially ended during the Obama Administration. The (sub rosa) termination of the COLA means that US SS benefits, already the fourth LOWEST relative benefits of their kind in the world in 2012, have stealthily been reduced by 30% over intervening the years. I do not consider Obama a "good" POTUS, and neither should any working class senior.
3
Ah Maureen, this will elevate your already lofty status as a centerpiece of the elitist cocktail party circuit most of us never get to attend, especially as Obama embarks on his new career as a Hollywood celebrity. This new Netflix role is perfect for him, his true calling. But he still talks down to the masses as if he's the messiah, and that is one of the primary reasons Trump got elected. And your piece is yet another example of how the media continues to fawn over him as if he can do no wrong.
2
Yes Maureen, considering what we have now, ( because trump is who we really are), obama was too good for us.
4
Obama was an avowed socialist who undermined our capitalist economy by over regulating business. Economic growth stagnated even through his last term. His foreign policy was a disaster, alienating and undermining the political stability of several of our closest allies. His speech during his visit to Egypt in the early days of his administration was a slap in the face to Israel. It gave support to an Arab Spring and to the Muslim Brotherhood, leaving Egypt and, for that matter, our Arab world allies in turmoil.
He ridiculed Romney for saying Russia was our biggest threat and then cozied up to Putin. Together with Hillary Clinton and Samantha Rice, he was responsible for covering up the Benghazi debacle. He colluded with his AG Holder and viciously used the IRS to go after conservative and religious organizations as well as journalists like Rosen.
Using his elegant demeanor and masterful use of the English language, Obama adroitly masked his radicalism. His ongoing friendship with such "stellar" figures as Reverend Wright, Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan (racists all) was deplorable but hardly challenged by the friendly media.
No, Ms Dowd, Obama was not "Just too good for us"... he was a disaster hoisted onto a hero's pedestal by sycophants on the left.
10
Ms. Dowd, you are conveniently sidestepping the environment in which President Obama tried to function. The relentless obstruction of his initiatives by the Republicans in the Congress prevented him from achieving the goals he set for himself and for the country. We all remember how he reached out to the Republicans only to get the cold shoulder one issue after another. One Republican leader even set a publicly announced goal to make President Obama "a one-term president." The same leader also refused to have a hearing on President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court. And, it goes on and on ...
So, you still want to find faults in Obama rather than imagining an America had the Republicans cooperated? Get a new pair of glasses that enhance objectivity.
3
Good thoughts and clearly presented.
Perhaps the USA needs King Solomon to sort out "the issues". He was pretty good about wisdom.
Thanks,
Frank
Mr. Obama was a good President. With the way things are going, maybe the last one we will ever have.
10
Apparently Rhodes relates in the book how Obama makes the comment regarding the economy and Trump "I've got the economy set up well for him". A more honest statement would have been if he said that about race relations. " I've got racial divisiveness set up well for him"......
3
Can't believe the easy forgetting of the Mitch McConnell led Congress that obstructed everything they could - EVERYTHING that Obama wanted. And now doing everything in their power to overturn everything - EVERYTHING that he managed (miraculously) to get through. Just go back to the Supreme Court nominee as one of the more blatant outrages - a big loss.
7
With the passage of time we will be able to evaluate Obama's presidency with clear-eyed objectivity. In the meantime, this is the short, concise, and essentially spot-on analysis.
Rhodes, too, apparently reveals inadvertently just how blinded he was, insulated in the Obamaworld bubble, that he was unable to see what wa coming.
Last, I think Hillary actually did use "It's Her Turn" as the basis of her campaign, along with "Bill, you owe me".
10
Yes, President Obama was brillant,dignified and in some ways a bit of a flawed leader. But,no one in American history has been so unfairly vilified. Mr. Obama was in a unique historical situation and the GOP took every advantage of it. Now it has been revealed that the Republicans still don’t have any ideas and have zero compassion .
10
Either the most incompetent or corrupt POTUS in the history of the country. Choosing which one, however, will be left to future historians.
5
While you're enjoying the brilliance of hindsight, you must reconsider in light of the current president, who redefines egotism, narcissism, and incompetence. The thought that he received any votes at all makes one question the wisdom of the electorate and our education practices.
3
I love your work, Maureen, but sometimes you go too far. Obama could see solutions and attempted to implement them. He met with the outrage of those who thought he could do anything and the recalcitrant behavior of enraged conservative, racist Senators and Representatives who vowed to make his administration a failure. Clinton does not have his vision, his drive, or his organization. If a dynamic, young, forward thinking individual won the presidency after Obama this all could be so different. Instead we wheeled out the oldest models we could find. Clinton, Trump, Sanders. Get in line folks, we are passing out your Geritol. I am 67 myself. These folks are too old. They are living in a past that is long gone and not coming back. Analyze some of the social forces, Maureen, instead of focusing on the foibles of those who had the courage, the stamina, and the fortitude to serve. You are a brilliant writer and truthfully I subscribe to the Times primarily to read your column. Just wish you would focus on the social surround a bit more from time to time.
1
IMO President Obama wanted to lead and believed in the leadership style of a community organizer. We did not have his back and that is the plain and simple truth. People want to have change but do not want to do the work it takes to make it or do not understand the necessity for the work. Are we learning that now?
When he said the "Michigan" quote I am sure he had another idea instead of it and as far as we know that idea was a good one. And his backing of Hillary instead of Joe who knows? The man has two daughters and a strong wife who he has aspirations for. I find Ms Dowd's obsession with dissing the both of them disgusting and unhelpful. She paints a one dimensional critique,
We were lucky to have Obama but was he lucky to have us?
"Bad time to figure that out."
Yes, you got that right. Dem Dems blew it, and basically because like you say, Obama was not (is not) a Party man. He's a professor, so if you're not in his class, no one is listening.
5
Yes, Maureen, perhaps Obama did make his fair share of mistakes.
Trump, on the other hand, is a mistake. One we will pay all the more dearly for with each day that passes with him in office.
11
At least you did not lead with your usual "No drama Obama" your frequent label for 8 years. Oh for just 20 minutes of that No Drama these days.
It appears to me that the list of policies 45 & his crew are so busy overturning from the Obama years, indicate that though not perfect Pres, Obama got a lot done for this country.
5
Obama struck just the right tone.
We, his subjects, were not worthy of his greatness and in our ignorance were unable to recognize the majesty of his presence in our lives.
Perhaps someday in the future a generation will rise that can cognitively, morally and politically be his equal.
1
Brutally honest and oh so true!
I often wrote this in the comments sections for most of 2016 and before the election that Obama had lost touch with the people. He had been in his ivory tower too long.
Now after the fact he realizes that one does not win people's hearts by lecturing them what to do, impose regulations and fine them if they don't follow them.
It pains me to say this, but Obama got corrupted by the power he had. And now by the money he is going to make.
Turning around now and admitting the HE made mistakes will be impossible. It is also so much easier to blame the people of this country.
Mitt Romney would have been a far better choice in 2012. We would have avoided the entire Trump madness.
3
You chopped off the Shakespeare quote. Should read: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars. But in ourselves, that we are underlings."
These circular rhetoric journalistsic pieces are amazingly confusing. Obama is "Too good for US" but was swept out of office by the populous that felt left behind? In the famous words of a a Hollywood robot of forgone years - "That does not compute".
1
Not only too good for us, also to good to the world too.
1
After eight years of feckless leadership. President Trump is a breath of fresh air. Obama relied on a victim mentality and the ever popular "blame whitey" outcry that's quite popular in tribalism.
4
Obama lacked courage for the office of presidency. He was neither bold nor brave and his years in office turned out to be more of the same old policies of Bush and Clinton catering primarily to the wealthy.
He was a war monger using drones to hide his killing and war-making.
He seemed to be a nice guy, bright and articulate, but failed by any measure as a progressive president. I vote for him twice and it will be the last time I ever vote for a president. Trump, Obama, etc. all the same!!
5
Obama did too little too late. Not just his endorsement of Clinton--arrogant, cynical, and greedy for decades. In the name of being PC and afraid of the extreme right, he let someone like trump become the president of this country...if Obama was afraid of his legacy now he must have realized he has no legacy left. He needed to behave like the U.S. President one last time and just bring to a halt the whole general election. Yes, it would have been unprecedented in the history of this country, but it would have saved it from being sabotaged by the russians. Now, it's too late for lamentations and regrets. We are being governed from moscow and the destruction of American institutions, values, alliences, etc. is happily underway while everyone wrings their hands unable to come up with a solution to this nightmare--which needs a radical one at this point. Be sure that when putin and his comrades are done with this country, it'll be in ruins. Americans will fight and blame each other while putin, trump, and their comrades in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel, China, etc. will be celebrating their coup. I believe Obama could have had a better legacy as someone that would have stood up against treason and a subversive war from russia. History will judge all those that were too weak, too afraid, too acommodating.
LIke all other presidents, Obama was not perfect--what a revelation. Compared to his predecessor and successor, though, he's looking pretty good. But maybe many Americans like having a president who lowers the bar--it makes them feel elevated.
3
Dowd seems to forget that no president since FDR faced such sustained, implacable hostility from the opposing party - a hostility that went well beyond differences in policy. And that this opposition was put in place after that party committed the worst foreign policy blunder and presided over the worst economic meltdown in several generations, both of which Obama had to confront right out of the starting gate. And that this party won midterm landslides through lies about Obama's signature domestic accomplishment, his efforts fo rescue the economy and even the origin of his birth. Obama was felled not by "arrogance" (where was that?), but by the deeply entrenched, covertly racist tribalism of the Republican party, which remains its defining mode.
8
Obama should move to Canada. He'd be appreciated here-- not an anachronism--very little faux news, hatred and phobia--great med care,
“Sometimes I wonder whether I was 10 or 20 years too early,” he said"
The best leaders are always "too early"--ahead of the pack--leading their ideological--value system--development toward the better angels of our nature (Lincoln). Politics is always the battle of the best in us (the species) against the worst. "We the people" cover a broad spectrum; never speaking with one voice. Criminal law will never be unnecessary, lat alone civil law--all of which set the rules of social life's game--civilization.
Of course personal growth/progress/development is always fraught with nostalgia and sentimental journeys. But you can't go home again--even if it was great.
But the USA was never great--it was only "land of the free" for some; for others it was land of the oppressed so others could be free to follow their whims. . Slavery--then racism/white supremacy, antisemitism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, classisms of all sorts, as well as god-story realisms--including hypocritical Puritanism (see Hawthorne) and Plutocracy spun as Democracy--money-rule spun as freedom. At best, it was merely ahead of the pack.
The worst politicians pander to the worst in us. Atavistic cries led by lies--the worst being the bad old days were great and so are they. So follow them back to the dark ages. Then see if you can call that "progress".
1
President Obama was too good for us.
6
"Yet Obama, who had surfed a boisterous wave into the Oval, ignored the restiveness — here and around the world. He threw his weight behind the most status quo, elitist candidate."
The author could have continued this thought by writing, "by saving Wall Street and ignoring Main Street, Obama lost his base and both houses in 2010, affirming that Wall Street does indeed run this country".
3
To paraphrase what a favorite uncle used to say in situations like this:
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hear ya. You're probably even right. But whatcha going to do about it now? How are you gonna fix this, make it better?"
I'm well alive to the arguments Maureen makes here, and to the counterarguments many of the commenters are making. But the time for lamentation is fast coming to an end. How are we gonna fix this?
If people--especially young people and progressive leaning people--don't go to the polls in ridiculously overwhelming numbers this November in the service of flipping Congress back to Democrats and providing a check on the depredations of Le Grand Orange and his cronies, then we probably deserve those depredations.
Too many people have for too long been too lazy, not bothering to vote, or even add voices to the debate, thinking these antediluvians could just be yawned away, that the better instincts of people would ultimately prevail (though we should never assume everyone has better instincts). As Neil Young pointed out, rust never sleeps, and it takes constant vigilance and effort to keep it from coating everything.
No more rejecting the decent while looking for the perfect. That too often leaves you with the awful.
The people have the power. But they'd better exercise it this November, while they still can.
3
It'd take a heart of stone not to smirk at the indignant comments by the True Believers vis a vis Dowd's column. Well, shucks, I hope they hold on to their notions because that's how they'll inevitably end up with more Trump.
6
Can we be more pompous. Of course the ultra liberal are far superior than us peons. Please just go away. Let us list them Obama and Clinton (Bill and Hillary) too smart for us. Reagan , Bushes, Eisenhower intellectually lacking. Is there a pattern here?
1
The affirmative action President who never had a career has a legacy of catastrophic failure. Healthcare, deficits, divisiveness, anemic recovery, open borders and endless prevarications were all disastrous for the private sector working class. Arming terrorists in Libya, Syria, and Egypt while turning Iraq over to ISIS and paying off Iran was genocidal. Of course stabbing Israel in the back was the icing on a very ugly cake. These are the real reasons millions of college educated women and minorities voted for a highly flawed candidate like Trump, despite being outspent 3 to one and having the media unanimously against him.
6
"Obama - Just Too Good for Us"??? just the opposite. His two terms were a judgement against this nation by the creator of the universe: God. We didn't deserve a great leader and so we were given BO as judgment.
We listened to our punishment and voted for Trump as a result. Yet the media and the left did not learn the lesson. And now, are we on the brink of a civil war?
1
He was a decent President, smart and thoughtful like most Presidents. He's only to good for us because we elected a Russian 5th columnist and possibly the Devil himself to the White House.
He will go down historically as a Great President. He had the good fortune to be sandwiched between Bush, a decent man who was totally out of his league and Trump, who is pure evil personified.
Your hatred of Hillary is part of the problem. We need to vote for the best candidate not the purest sole who isn't running. Based on any measure Hillary was head and shoulders better than Donald Trump. She may not have been too good for us but she was certainly good enough and in comparison great.
8
Obama was a leftist, academic, know-nothing who had little real world experience before taking office. Prior to becoming President the only thing he ever ran was his mouth, which he was quite good at.
President Trump has demonstrated that once you take the jack boot of government off of the necks of business, magic things happens. Obama never understood this. In fact, he thought business was the enemy. This is why he failed. This is why his "legacy" is being completely undone by President Trump. This is why historians will likely call the Obama Presidency "the wasted years".
4
to do list so decent people might to be politicians again:1.repeal citizens united2.make all 24 hour cable news networks reduce their broadcasting to 30 minutes per night3. institute term limits.4.end gerrymandering5.limit presidential campaigns to 6 months every four years..... then, somebody like barack,who is a wonderful and intelligent human being ,a great father and a great husband might have chance.
Barack Obama is the most honorable, intelligent, thoughtful, scandal free president in more than 100 years. He dealt with Trump's racist birtherism in a manner not possible for 99% of politicians. He is the model of everything a president should be.
He had his faults. They are so minor compared with his two immediate predecessors and his narcissistic successor.
In short, President Obama is the one person who represents a reason not to support term limits for the presidency.
4
Obama's biggest mistake was that he was that he continually wanted to compromise with a Republican Party that would have none of it. What he should have done when the Dems controlled both houses of Congress was institute a single-payer Medicare for all health system; appoint more liberal federal judges; tell Israel in no uncertain terms to quit settlement building on Palestinian lands and get serious about a two-state solution, and shore up our social safety net to make it impossible for Republicans tearing it down. Obama had grace, humility and smarts. I miss him hugely and have nothing but contempt for the graceless, ignorant, mendacious, narcissistic buffoon who replaced him.
5
Here we go again. I have to say that most unresolved racial, and misogynistic prejudices have to do with those you claim to not be prejudiced against actually acting like they are someone (uppityness). Yes, it is fine for blacks and women to be treated equally, but if they ever claim anything for themselves or show a little bit of self-pride then we slam them.
A white man like Trump, however, is allowed to go full bore narcissistic and barely gets a nod. It is always his right to do that, somehow.
THis is what I see as the racism that they claim not to posess in the slightest...
3
0bama cannot bring himself to tell us the truth about his wife, Michelle. If ha can't do THAT, then what else has he lied about? Answer: pretty much everything.
President Trump has fulfilled, or is fulfilling, every promise he made to the American People. Trump will be our finest President for modern times, better even than JFK or Ronald Reagan. And he is doing all of this with the Swamp throwing everything they have to stop him. Trump IS America. I love Trump.
2
Add this to the, I'm sure, other approx 500 of these that try desperately try to point out the obvious fact that as President, it was The One We Have Been Waiting For that PUT us in our tribes--or tried terribly hard to.
Jesus the lack of irony, decency, and self-awareness on the Left is so yuge. #kag
3
I have believed that Obama chose tenure rather than greatness.
2
It's more frightening to read the comments from people who opine for the servitude Obama had beguiled you into believing was nirvana. As far as moral character is concerned, Bill Clinton (the first black president) has a far more corrupt moral character than Donal Trump will ever have.
4
To be good or to be effective. Obama vs. Trump-
1
Completely agree with you. On all counts. especially on Obama's (so so sad) bypassing his own VP to back Hillary who he knew was so flawed. Obama himself was elected on all the grass roots and populist messages, so it was most baffling and surprising that he did not embrace Bernie.
What you did not mention was Michele Obama. she too blindly supported Hillary, speaking for her as a surrogate on the campaign trail, and clearly selling Hillary's campaign's one tone message, that it was time for a woman, and that woman has to be Hillary, and do it now. Granted Michele was thinking about her own daughters. But I cannot help feeling that the Clintons and the democratic party were either blackmailing or arm twisting the Obamas. We get an inkling of this from Donna Brazille's post election book, that Obama did not fundraise enough for the DNC and in fact left the party in a lot of debt, so the Clintons came in and Hillary's campaign basically took over the financing through Hillary Victory Fund and such, drawing mega stars like the Clooneys, the notorious Weinstein, Hollywood and rock stars from A to Z https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/11/hillary-clinto...
8
The unmitigated arrogance of these people, why do people think what obama was selling was good for the country?
3
If the GOP had put aside their racist beliefs and participated in governing rather than obstructing, the Obama era could have been a boon for America. No other President in recent history faced the opposition the Republicans imposed upon his Presidency.
Now we are living with what came with their obstruction, Trump. Not only do they not oppose his ridiculous and stupid policies, they tolerate without objection his racism, misogyny, and utter contempt for the norms we have come to expect from our President.
Obama rescued us from the Great Recession, a hangover from the Bush Presidency, and with no help from the GOP. He gets the blame for leaving Iraq to soon, but the truth is the Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq was negotiated by the Bush Administration. He simply implemented it after not being able to secure an agreement with Iraq not to try American service members in Iraqi courts.
With what we are experiencing with the current President, I long for the Presidency of no drama Obama.
3
Obama will go down as one of the worst Presidents in American history. I distinctly remember thinking on the day after he first won back in 2008 "Well - at least America electing her first African-American President should do wonders for race relations".
Yeah...not so much.
And Democrats are going to wish Hillary Clinton had just accepted her defeat with class and dignity. Instead, she launched this farce of a "Russia colluded with Trump to steal the election" conspiracy theory.
Which has the delicious result of slowly but surely exposing the brazen corruption of the Obama administration.
There will be no "Blue Wave" on Nov. 6th....the GOP will easily hold onto the House and pick up at least five or six Senate seats.
After Anthony Kennedy retires and Trump replaces him with another Justice like Gorsuch the left is going to go even more ballistic....and I will be enjoying every minute of their angst.
6
I’m curious. Like a lot of Trumpites, you’re very clear about what you don’t like about The Democrats, but curiously reticent to list what you admire about the Trump presidency. What do you like? The tax bill? Tariffs? The cabinet? Be brave. Tell us what you believe is commendable about Gorsuch, instead of simply writing his name.
A nice, handsome, well-spoken milquetoast sort of guy who had no fight in him and seemed to always give up at the first sign of resistance. Developed no relationships with the Democratic leadership in congress. Could you imagine the progress we could have made if he had half the fight in him as Trump? He got owned by Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell!!!? Obama's legacy will be only that he was the first black president. Huge disappointment and a waste of potential, but when your corporate donors don't want you to go against their interests, this is what you get.
4
In the future, clips of delusional crowds from Obama gatherings and those of Nuremberg rallies will be run side by side. The bulging eye stares and pseudo Shekinah glory around the 2008 dear leader will be exposed. For roughly the last 40 years, Democrats have been and continue to be the party that Acts on Emotion with out the benefit of Intellect. The appropriate anthem for the Obama election campaigns should have been Edgar Winter's song "Free Ride", because that is exactly what he was selling - my hometown state of New York was and continues to be one of the biggest buyers (with other people's money of course) Ms. Dowd - you're still handing out placebos- but hey, what's one more torpedo to a sinking ship?
4
The entire article and commentary here is exactly why the libs will loose and loose again. Everything is backward looking and lamentations of what could have been and should have been.
No 'can do' attitude, just why it wasn't done. Not BO's fault, but everyone elses.
You folk could add more chapters to HIllary's book of excusses.
It is here and now and the future of our society that should be being discussed. A way to inspire the American society and inhabitants in the greatest experiment of personal freedom and opportunity in the history of mankind.
As long as you embrace your attitude of victimhood you will be victims of your own subjegation. And rightfully so.
Those of us that seize the moment, and see obstacles as opportunities will continue to smile and enjoy the short life we have been so fortunate to recieve.
Good luck and fortune to us all. And may GOD bless America.
1
Maureen demonizing Hilliary again as an excuse for Trump”s election. She just can’t help herself. Anything but the truth. Dowd and others in the press don’t like to acknowledge they had a hand in Donald Trump but they did.
3
Well, the evidence is now in: Obama did not fail us, we failed Obama. And not a small slice of responsibility goes to a blighted group of "commentators" who would search for blemishes in our political leaders and then magnify them into causes for the country's problems. All this while a set of cartoon characters is going about wrecking our institutions. And led by a despicable monster. How can Dowd possibly justify attacking Obama now, and on such trivial charges, while the country is in such desperate straits, with almost 1/2 the country supporting the monster? What kind of mentality would stoop so low, to provide indirect support for the destroyers by pursuing her petty vendettas? It sickens me.
3
Give me a break Dowd, Obama was in it up to his ears trying to ipose a permanant Democratic Socialist majority, weaponizing IRS, Justice and many other bureauacricies to that end. He and others belong in jail. Eventually Judicial Watch will uncover all his misdeeds. Then, inditements all around.
5
When you judge Obama from a sympathetic view driven by feelings, bias and prejudice rather than an empathetic view driven by intellect, you succumb to Obama's "gift," he makes individuals comfortable with his failures.
4
Is this a joke? Sure, President Obama was this countries first metrosexual President and had a great appeal with all the factions that the democrats brainwash into thinking that they are victims but he was horrific for this country. Terrible economy, disaterous race relations, a foreign policy that causes our enemies abroad to laugh at us and the weaponization of the IRS, Justice Department and the FBI, will be his legacy. Now Donald Trump is doing a fantastic job of cleaning up his mess and it’s driving our elitist handlers crazy. Thank you Mr. Obama for giving us Donald Trump, couldn’t have had him without you.
8
Ms. Dowd is right - Liberalism has failed in America every time it's been tried, so instead of continuing to waste your time and ours, why not move your road show to a location that has a population with a proven track record of accepting Liberalism in all its various forms, e.g., Venezuela?
5
Conspicuously absent from this analysis is the effect of the right wing media's frothing-at-the-mouth perpetuation of Obama as an illegitimate, Muslim president who hated America. Most Republicans today still believe Obama was born in Kenya.
Despite that backdrop, and with much commitment, Obama soberly turned the worst recession in 70 years into a steadily improving economy.
5
What has Ms. Dowd have against Mr. Obama?
I try to keep it in perspective by remembering that she couldn't handle marijuana. She must be pretty tightly wound.
May I suggest some yoga?
5
Obama failed, on too many fronts to even mention here. He lied to us, about things that matter. He failed with our economy,employment, foreign affairs. Whats left? Nothing. No legacy, no success, Barry who ?
5
Obama has an enormous ego, one that could turn back the gentle rise of the oceans. For his "library" the facade could include his teleprompter and a copy of Alynski's "Rules For Radicals".
Even, in retirement, he can't quit community organizing.
7
Obama, who presented himself as the healing president was the most partisan president in modern times. Not only did he refuse to compromise on any policy. While he did very nothing to improve the conditions of poor blacks and other minorities, he played the race card whenever possible and managed to convince many blacks that they have no chance of advancement in the US. In foreign affairs, his policies left 5 new wars and over half a million dead civilians in their wake and managed to destabilize the Middle East and Eastern Europe. If that is too good, one would wonder how Ms. Dowd would define bad?
11
Ms. Dowd I find it really interesting that you place no blame for all of President Obama’s “faults” on the Mitch McConell lead cabal that is called the GOP. You place all the blame on an honest & decent man that many consider a true patriot because he did his best for the country with a mess he inherited from the start. This country is literally being lead by an orange version of George Wallace and the only thing you can write about is President Obama’s faults and missteps. Really? You can miss me all day with this assessment of yours about Barack. Take a look also at this country’s racist history when you have nothing else to do and then go ask Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan & the Koch brothers what they were doing for the 8 years of the Obama presidency. While you’re at it, look in the mirror and ask yourself what role you also played in writing incessantly about Hillary Clinton and the emails. Oh and by the way, your hands and your keyboard aren’t clean either. Go back and look at some of what you’ve written about Barack Obama and Hilary. After you’ve done all that, then come back to me with a column that makes some sense.
12
If a tree rises in a desert and no one is around to be shaded, does it make things cool…
.....
After 2008, WHCD less funny by the year...
But you gave it your best shot, Mo – Kudos…
….
Regarding our totally Trumanesque, modestly Mahatman ex – save for the soon-to-be pyramidal monument-to-living-self, replete with test kitchen – his jokes and his joke-writer stopped being funny some time ago…
But - as I always cheer on Comey - if Obama can bop a billion on the way out, Godspeed...
After all, he did build that pyramid scheme...
So long as every time he makes another million, a bell rings - and a progressive somewhere gets his migraine...
2
"We just weren't ready for his amazing awesomeness."
GAG. Sorry, I threw up in my mouth a little bit...
6
He still remains the same arrogant, egotistical leftist since he left the WH. He puts on a false front that he is the smartest POTUS in history. What he did in 8 years was to tear apart the fiber of the country. Everything was a black-white issue in his eyes. He perpetuated his agenda to attack white Christians, our police, and military and opponents of his catch and release of illegal aliens at our southern border. His disdain for Israel was as obvious but cuddled up to Muslims, even the anti-American Muslin Brotherhood. Any gains in race harmony over the last 30 or so years disappeared in 8 years by having his Justice Dept. prejudge their investigations of every newsworthy incident between whites and blacks, and law enforcement. Obama did not have any experience as an executive or experience dealing with world affairs, national or foreign business. We the people had very little or no information given about his schooling, associations with questionabe people, the reason why he and his wife's license to practice law was revoked. His life experience as a community organizer, part- time associate professor in a college and his unrecognizable stint as a State and U.S. Senator leaves a lot to be desired. He mishandled foreign affairs, decreasing the workforce and weaken our military strength and response to world problems. He will not be revered as a President by our historians. He was probably the most politically oriented person to hold the position as POTUS.
4
Obama was too good for us? Hardly. He was a dedicated Marxist who lied about who he really is... he hated the very thought of American exceptionalism. He spent his time in office apologizing for our greatness, while simultaneously trying to destroy the very foundation of our Republic. He will go down in history as a seditious conspirator and traitors.
9
To say such things about President Obama defines what is wrong with the U.S. You could not be more ill-informed about him, and it is clear you have no idea what a Marxist is.
4
Ms. Dowd please, please give it a rest. We regular readers know of your disdain for President Obama and outright hostility towards Hillary Clinton. You have written about both ad nauseum. Yes your comments relate to a new book about President Obama but you have nothing new to say about him or Mrs Clinton. I would rather you used this valuable space in the NYT to comment on the unfolding disasters being promulgated by Trump. And yes they are disasters. You would do well to apply your excoriating prose on the damaged human who is currently the occupant of the White House and take it beyond the Op-ed pages of the NYT. Those of us watching the unfolding dramas in the wider world are fearful that the actions of this ill informed and malicious President will have profoundly adverse effects for all of us - not just Americans. Not once in the eight years of President Obama's tenure in office did that fear exist. You should be focused on Trump and his spineless enablers. Who knows, you might have something worthwhile to say.
13
"President Obama could be deliberative, reticent and cautious to a fault, which spurred an appetite for a more impulsive, visceral, hurly-burly successor."
C'mon, Ms. Dowd. You know what label you and others would have affixed to Barack Obama if he had been more impulsive, visceral, hurly-burly; some version of Angry Black Man.
Be honest.
4
After the past horrible week for the world, it is just silly to write an op-Ed reviling President Obama. This is completely irrelevant now.
6
Obama was an empty suit with a big smile. But the Liberal media adored him like subservient lapdogs adore their owner. For those who have minds unclouded by Leftwing dogma, Trump is a breath of fresh air for those with eyes to see and minds not brainwashed by Leftist dogma.
5
Are you bored, Ms. Dowd? Kicking around Obama again? Maybe you need to find a more productive hobby.
Clearly, the Obamas were too good for us. And for God's sake, they were Black. You can't be too intelligent, too reflective, too effective if you're Black. The Maureen Dowds of the world won't have it.
God forbid the man should exert his intellect. And I say, thank God he did. I will forever be grateful to have lived through his Presidency. He was on the right track. And a whole bunch of people, including you Ms. Dowd, couldn't stand it. Just couldn't stand it.
Because he was Black. No? Really?
12
Obama was the most corrupt president in history. That Maureen Doud would even try to suggest that he was "too good" for America proves to me that the uber-Left will say anything to revise history. Just. Wow.
6
Maureen, just stop it. The problem isn’t Obama, it is people like your brother who are arrogant and bigoted and willfully uninformed who support this complete disaster called Trump.
And apparently you can’t separate yourself from your brother to see that.
7
Wow.
Hey, Maureen -don't let too much spite and disdain color your writing.
1
"As president, Obama always found us wanting. We were constantly disappointing him." - I never, ever had that impression of Obama. I thought Obama inspired our better impulses. You're just still looking for ways to justify the fact that you dissed Obama relentlessly, cynically, nihilistically, for eight years, for no particular reason other than to vent your personal spleen (he wasn't flattering or deferential enough to you, or something - or maybe he just frankly wasn't that impressed by you). All of these pieces trying to justify your dislike of Obama are a bit lame, but this one is _really_ stretching. It's starting to look to me like you're hoping to slowly rewrite history - you're starting to very gradually speak more respectfully of Obama (no "Barry" anymore?), even while pointing out things he supposedly did wrong, hoping eventually people will think you were actually an Obama supporter? and forget that you played a role in electing Donald Trump.
7
Can Dowd please, for god's sake, as an atheist, can she please, please just go away? No one needs or wants any of this. It's awful and unnecessary. Please make it stop.
4
What a haughty, self-important, arrogant man. And neither he nor his followers and sycophants will ever figure it out.
11
In the end, Obama was nothing more than an authoritarian, community agitator who sought to rule rather than lead and he had no respect for working Americans always seeking to punish success. He spent his time attempting to make dysfunctional and deviant behaviors a civil right. Thus, he, his failed polices, and his corrupt Administration have been rejected as he heads for the trash heap of history.
13
That is overly harsh!
But you are right on two things: At least for his second term Obama wanted to rule rather than lead, because the second is way harder to do. And the administration was out of touch with the people by pushing the wrong priorities without any objectively compelling reason.
Both things together doomed the election.
And these were HUGE mistakes, how else could someone like Trump possibly get so many votes???
1
Exactly. We, the body politic, should be eternally grateful Obama and the Democratic Congress only had two years to inflict Dodd-Frank, the ADA and other harmful and pernicious laws upon us.
1
Yes, how dare a black man who watched an orange one build his entire political career on the racist lie of birtherism speculate that perhaps a lot of people in our nation were not ready for a black President? Obama isn’t naive about racism, and neither is Dowd. Maybe she shouldn’t lecture Obama on how to be black.
10
Obama was and is a phoney
3
"Obama did not like persuading people to do what they didn’t want to do."
Perhaps not to your satisfaction Ms. Dowd. I don't know what Obama did to earn your unwavering animus but it makes me want to shower with a Brillo pad.
7
Snakes do not lose their venom.
He had NO management Skills at all, he had never done anything in his Life, Tony Rezko helped him buy his Chicago home and he wrote two books, one with the help of Bill Ayers. This was an Election only a Democrat could win after Bush, just like 1976, and again the Internationalists pulled a Nobody up and put him in the Oval Office, Jimmy Carter won with the help of David Rockerfeller, Obama had George Soros. he MSM loved this guy but he was Terrible and will be Proven to be much more crooked than even Nixon.
5
This feels to me like the worst kind of revisionism, particularly coming from a member of the 'liberal" press. Obama owes us nothing. He owes the Democratic party nothing. All you accomplish with this column is more fuel for the bigots and corporate puppets to build this 10 lane superhighway to hell.
9
Right you are Dowd, even the perfidious Obama is too good for you.
1
The foul and racist Obama haters are delighted to read the old Maureen this morning. Remember when she called him Barry? When she claimed that Trump was a dove? I will never forget the relentless pounding of Clinton and Obama by the indescribably petty Ms. Dowd and the way she incited the grossest of right wingers.
10
Mrs. Dowd, once again, desperately tries to distinguish herself, at all cost. And, fortunately, Joe Biden did not run in 2016. He would have beard the burden of the supreme insult, ending his career, badly beaten by 'this black stain on the US presidency' called Donald J. Trump, this fabricated symbol of a corporate myth of a success story. The American people's laziness elected this man as POTUS. You deserve Trump. And so, yes, sorry, Obama was too good for you.
5
Please, please let this empty suit Chicago Machine hack go away.
4
Obama is a communist in socialist’s clothing. He was not too good for me, nor for this great constitutional republic. He shifted the country far into European welfare state territory. Another term and we would’ve been headed into Venezuelan waters. You do not speak for me or the silent majority of constitutionalists. Obama was no friend of ours. Now let the racist accusations begin because ad-hominyms are all that the left knows when faced with truth.
5
Barack Obama was not too early. White America was and is too late.
7
Ah Maureen back to sneering at obama. You Cohen kristof and bruni bear a great weight for having served to bring in trump. But you have no shame, and continue to wallow in your shallow sneers. Like the bourbons, you forget nothing, and learn nothing. May you meet their fate.
3
More Hillary bashing?
4
It's amazing how so many Leftist posts come across as sanctimonious losers. That they know what's best for everyone. They are all fools for following the person who said, "There are more stars than grains of sand...."
4
Every time I read your column Maureen, regardless of the topic...,
I come away with a sense of a person who isn’t too different from the self centered, contemptuous, egomaniacal narcissist who currently inhabits the WH. Kindred spirits.
Even your critic of Hilary and Obama over the years was like reading a subconscious evaluation of yourself. Projection much?
5
Sycophant does not even begin to describe Dowd. There are no words that do.
3
Are you sure you know what that word means? I don't think you apply it correctly.
2
Maureen Dowd is reprehensible. She has taken a break from bashing Hilary, taken a break from bashing Bill Clinton, taken a break from sucking up to the Donald, so that she can go back to her 2nd favorite topic (after Clinton-hate): Obama hate. At least, I assume that's what the drivel is that she has written. Can't say for sure because I haven't read it and don't intend to. The Times should be ashamed of itself for continuing to print the vomit that Dowd spews.
6
The most laughable cr@p I’ve ever read. I had to briefly check my IPAD to ensure that I hadn’t accessed “The Onion”. Dowd and the NYT have reached a pinnacle that I’d thought unreachable.
Obama, his ilk, and their policies created Trump. For this, the country should be grateful. Now sit back and enjoy the ride to American greatness...again!
1
You caught on to Obama too late with too little insight, Mo. He and Hillary were in ways mirrors of each other, in other ways photographic negatives.
The focus of each was self. Each thought him/herself the smartiest pants in the room. Each took personal what should never have been taken that way. His superficial cerebralism counterpoised her readiness for fisticuffs. His sniffy disdain balanced her sneering contempt. His ideology-driven thinking opposed her criminality.
Neither of these was presidential timber or even presidential toilet paper. They're both lady fingers thinking themselves sticks of dynamite.
4
Mo nails it!
1
Well, Ms. Dowd sounds like you were one of the ones President Obama spoke about when he said “Maybe people just want to fall back into their tribe.”
8
Contrary to Ms. Dowd's assertion, Barack Obama did not defy "impossible odds and gracefully leap over obstacles."
Rather, #JournoList (a private mailing list of alleged Journalists) banded together to ensure his election. One of the writers identified themselves as "the unofficial Barack Obama Election Committee." This group of objective reporters preplanned smears of Obama opponents, such as "We'll call them racist. It doesn't matter if they are, we'll keep calling them that" and coordinating attacks on people who brought up inconvenient facts such as Reverend "God damn America" Wright. Note that many of the original JournoListers are still employed by the major media, evidence of their collusion be damned, which also tells us a great deal about the media, as well.
Obama (a man of no discernible legislative achievements, who, frankly, hadn't run as much as an ice cream stand) rode the hagiographic tongue bath of Democrat House Organs like the New York Times, Washington Post, and their broadcast comrades to the Presidency twice.
President Socially Promoted was an empty suit and only now does Ms. Dowd notice?
5
Wow! Can I get a plane ticket to that parallel universe? Must be an amazing place to live.
You don’t get it, Maureen.
5
WHY WHY? Does anyone read or listen to this writer? She spent column after column demeaning Obama and supporting Trump. Now , she's gotten what she wanted. Trump is HER president and she's still not happy. She is oblivious as to what her favorable commentary has done to harm and disgrace this country. Do us ALL a favor and get rid of her...Enough of her is enough...
4
Be gone Traitors!
4
Dear MD,
Review the total pass please,
Published on Jun 26, 2015
President Obama delivers a eulogy for state Senator Clementa Pinckney, who was one of nine victims in the June 17, 2015, shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Watch the complete funeral service here: http://cs.pn/1GNNMzs
The more we read Maureen Dowd’s political commentary the more we have to conclude that she is the mirror image of Donald Trump.
Both suffering from narcissistic personality disorder.
Guess what Ms. Dowd.
You are certainly not smarter than most of us, especially when it comes to a former president by the name of Barack Obama.
8
Maureen Dowd once again dons her 'no non-sense broad' persona to play Monday morning quarterback about the Obama presidency. Perhaps Obama should have known deep in his bones that 25% of the American electorate was irredeemably racist, but there is absolutely no way that he would have been elected (twice) if he had betrayed such knowledge.
The rest of the world has always coped with American naivité, but I'm not sure it can survive the current melange of ignorance and cynicism coming out of Washington. But I'm sure the congenitally wised-up Maureen Dowd can explain how that too is the fault of the liberal bien-pensants to whom she feigns condescension.
7
If Obama is all of that and a bag of chips why does he hide his college records?
2
Oh stop it. Obama was too good for many of us.
His relative lack of stunning success is because the disgusting Republican establishment pledged to screw him at every turn - and they did. It had nothing to do with his reticence or so-called aloofness.
He was dignified, gracious and intelligent. If that doesn't work in America, it's America's fault, not his.
16
What drivel. "Maureen the astrologer".
5
Dems should have elected Clinton president in 2008, then 8 years later, Obama. Clinton was in the prime of her career, would have been an excellent president, and any Dem was going to beat McCain/Palin especially after W's wars and collapsed economy.
After Clinton, then, with 8 more years of experience as Senator (or VP!), Obama would have started his 8 year term last year, at the prime age of 55. And by that point, he would have been really good too. He should have been walking Hillary to her helicopter on her last day, instead of Trump walking with Obama on his last day.
Hillary then Obama. It was so painfully obvious. It would have been the greatest 16 years of Progressive achievements America has ever seen. It would have been the end of the Republican party. But the Democrats blew it.
The arrogant, egocentric, selfish Obama wouldn't allow Hillary to go before him, and the Democratic voters couldn't control their obsession with their new toy.
So there you had it, Hillary was put out to pasture in the prime of her career and a completely naive and inexperienced Obama was put in the Oval Office to flail around like a fish out of water for the next 8 years.
Good thing the liberal left is such a feckless bunch, otherwise we could have all been really screwed.
Yeah, you are all a bunch of geniuses, just like Obama. 10 or 20 years too early? No, exactly 8. But either way, totally agree, you all blew it. Thank God.
2
What perplexes me about so many on the Democratic side is they don’t judge Obama based upon his performance. In my life, his presidency was 8 years of tepid wage increases, limited job opportunities and higher healthcare costs due to ACA. I realize some people got free or subsidized healthcare and they probably love it, but the taxpayers and other users of healthcare are paying the bill. I am hard pressed to see a problem he solved but maybe someone can point something out that I missed.
11
The economy we have now is because of Obama's stabilizing management. The damage from the coming trade wars will be entirely Trump's doing.
And your healthcare costs were going up wether the ACA passed or not. There are plenty of Democrats who are eager to work to shore up the ACA and extend financial relief to those who don't yet qualify for help with their premiums.
Is there anyone on the right who wants to actually help control those costs for working people and work constructively to fix the flaws in the law? No. All they see is red meat for their base. 'Repeal and Replace'. Well, we saw what they wanted to 'replace' Obamacare with. And, pardon my language, it suuuuuuuucked.
4
Still too early to render a accurate evaluation of Obama's presidency---historians will need another ten years for that. But one quality, which we all took for granted, was he was a class act. No scandals, no vulgarity, no shady friends, no family embarrassments. From a purely symbolic point, he was presidential. No matter what successes the Trump administration racks up, he is not man who you want your son or daughter to emulate. Even today, a year later, the symbols of the U.S. presidency--Air Force 1; the Presidential Emblem on Podiums--always seem out of place with the man now representing the office we all once admired.
8
He had a DOJ that protected him. IRS. Fast and Furious. Clinton E-mails.
3
I believe that Obama's legacy will be viewed as a case study in Extremes. On the positive, he had the foresight to bring Ben Bernancke and Janet Yellen to guide us economically, gave justice to Osama bin Laden, and brought forth the ACA which despite a rocky start is now finally getting the recognition it so richly deserves. On the negative, there was no justice for the perpetrators of the Great Recession (thank you, Timothy Geitner), Syria, and Hillary. Maybe because he was too close to the situation, but Obama failed to recognize Clinton's limited electability (too much baggage, a refusal to learn from mistakes, and limited oratorical skill). What all of us will miss, however, is his incredible civility despite all he had to endure.
6
What is it that we can realistically expect from a president? With the election of each new one, that target seems to change. One thing we know for certain is that the president is not a god, and does not have those kind of powers. He's not our father, either, although I do think many Americans feel comforted by having a paternal figure in the Oval Office. Maybe that's the crux of it: depending on who our own fathers were, that is how we judge the president. It's more of a psychosocial phenomenon. For me, Obama was smart, funny, and inspirational. I could be proud of him. I would be happy to introduce him to my friends. I could talk to him about most issues. Did he make all the right decisions? What president does? What father does?
7
Interesting to read any liberal writer in the Times even hint at the many weaknesses of Obama and his poorly chosen, hand picked successor. It seems this paper normally prefers dreamland, blaming Trump for its every disappointment over the last 18 months.
The country made the correct decision in November, 2016. We’ve received many benefits of that decision.
8
Ms Dowd hit the nail on the head. I was proud on my country in electing Oboma. So what if he was "too cool for school."
Hillary is an entirely different kettle of fish. She taints everything and anyone in her orbit. She makes typhoid Mary seem benign. James Comey was a decent, hard-working, and honorable public servant. Until he had to deal with hubris and arrogance of HRC.
Please go away, Bill and Hillary. Haven't you done enough damage already. Your coronation in 2016 turned into a disaster. You lazy feckless candidate.
4
Arrogant. Arrogant elite people who are "smarter" than me. GO AWAY!
2
Waiting now to discover that He died for our sins and will be reborn to reign over us and to judge our fitness for that New Kingdom.
The NYT has indeed jumped the proverbial shark.
3
I consider Obama the beautiful lie and Trump the ugly truth. I voted for Obama in 2008 and expected maybe an angry black man who was going to clean house and he turned out to be a Wall Street puppet. The lies of Obama are too long to list, although you can youtube the 65 lies from Obama. it only covered up to 2011
11
Still waiting for the $2500 in savings Obama promised I’d see from ObamaCare. Where is it, Barack?
8
Obama was/is a decent man. 30% wouldn’t appreciate that because he is not lily-white. But the lily-whites aren’t exactly people I admire. Gosh, a lot of them are downright stupid. Hey, these days, stupid and, at best, mediocre, seems to be the status quo. Forget it if you have an original idea. The US is in a serious downslide. We have plenty of people who could stop this implosion but choose not to. I speak out but feel like a sort of Cassandra. Many really are too busy with what’s on TV, their own miserable lives, and are clueless into their own reality. So, the Country diminishes. Maybe it’s time? God, I hope not
3
Obama was the most corrupt and incompetent president in US history.
5
Weird column, coming from a former Trump admirer. There was nothing else to write about?
Really!? Just by looking at the statistics of eight years of his administration the only thing anyone with a modicum of intelligence can conclude is that he wasn’t very good at anything except division (and systematically dismantling the Democratic Party). As for Maureen Dowd and the New York Times...you are just too good as a columnist and as a newspaper that no one deserves to read you and it. Hopefully that will come to pass.
4
What about Dowd's mistakes? Her ceaseless Clinton bashing and lack of being able to discuss any issue seriously helped lead us into Trump. Take responsibility, Ms. Dowd!
4
Many have excoriated Barak Obama for being too cautious as president, too cerebral, too Spock-like. As America's first black president, Obama had to balance himself between being an "Angry Black Man" (unacceptable to White people) and a "Smiling Negro" (unacceptable to people of color). His calm (when he was seething inside) in the face of rancid racists like Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Republican Party is beyond admirable.
Perhaps, just like Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson in their fields before him, Obama will have made, by his intellect and demeanor, the road for the next non-White/female president just a little bit easier.
Some NY Times columnists should acknowledge this.
7
I'm still waiting for Maureen Dowd's column about how the media, including New York Times columnists, share the blame for Trump's election, along with Hillary and Barack.
8
They do share the RESPONSIBILITY.
To the same extent as they have to share the responsibility for the Iraq invasion.
In both cases it comes down to their inability to objectively analyse the available data in an unbiased manner and act accordingly.
I foresaw the general Iraq disaster that would follow on the invasion (although I did not foresee ISIS or the "Arab Spring"). My biggest disappointment was seeing Colin Powell justify it at the UN. I could not believe my eyes when I saw what he called "evidence" for WMDs.
I also foresaw the real danger that Trump would win, for the very same reasons MD states here in this article and that Rhodes describes. I even articulated them here in these comments sections almost verbatim.
However, "still a man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest"....
2
I worked tirelessly on both OBAMA campaigns focused on getting him Latino votes successfully. OBAMANOS! Bumper stickers still fill cabinets in my offices in South Florida. I am honored to call Barack a friend but I find it difficult to forgive him his greatest mistake which Ms. Dowd touches on in this article. President OBAMA had to have selected a successor prior to the second terms campaign and he should have dropped “Good OLD Joe” then and replaced him on the ticket with whomever he had selected to carry forward the OBAMA legacy. Whomever he selected be it a he or a she needed to have some spotlight put on then in the second term as part of a proper grooming for the job. He got lazy with the succession plan and we the United States of America are paying a huge price for him sticking to Hillary. Her candidacy flawed by zero charisma coupled with mega heavy baggage belonging to her husband a man the country had seen enough of in the White House. Barack you have more intellect and integrity in your pinkie finger than the Great White Dope now occupying the Oval Office. Trump is rife with Narcissitic Personality Disorder and is being easily played by all foreign leaders unfortunately better by our mortal enemies as opposed to our allies. I pray Bobby Three Sticks whacks Putin, Xi, KIM puppet into submission or behind bars, I pray there are enough educated voting citizens to cut out the sycophant Republicans out from alongside him at the governments trough. OBAMANOS!
1
What Dowd seems to be saying is that Obama's mistake was in being Obama. How dare he.
"We just weren’t ready for his amazing awesomeness." Really? We elected him twice, so obviously we WERE ready! Truth is HE wasn't ready to be President. He made promises he didn't keep and enacted liberal policies which he never campaigned for. He is a racist. So PLEASE, stop with the narcissism... It's not Fox News or Americas fault Nobama is a failure.
5
I am disgusted by this writer's continued victimization of Secretary Hillary Clinton. Dowd has repeatedly demonstrated that she is not ethically fit to shine Secretary Clinton's shoes, much less publish one lie after another and invent baseless slogans intended to denigrate and degrade her.
3
Once again, Dowd misreads history and recent events to fit into a pre-conceived narrative that this column reflects.
3
Obama was a mistake....for America. Get over it!
4
I prefer Trump over Hillary. He is appalling and dangerous. Still....
America has to endure this president and recognize, truly feel it for the first time, how racist and dumb its politics are. Not an intellectual, decent and kind man like Obama will wake you up, but a disastrous fool (hopefully) will
Why so sour on Obama, Maureen Dowd? Barack Hussein Obama was one of our better American angels. The worst angels are prevailing during Trump's presidency. Yep, only correct and true thing you wrote was that Obama was "just too good for us". Alas, Trump's people -- loyalists, red state candidates, iggeroadies -- will sweep the Mid-Terms no matter what the blue states do. Anger and ignorance are fueling Trump's voters. Even though the writing on the wall is saying "you have been judged and found wanting, Donald Trump!" Lord knows we are missing President Obama and his singing "Amazing Grace" at funeral of Charleston Massacre victims. Missing his hopes and dreams of his black and white legacy to we pluribus unum. Can you imagine the big orange Mullet Man singing either "Amazing Grace" or even "Oh, Say Can You See" Maureen? Your choir is wishing you had discussed and dissed the supremo feckless female Roseanne Barr and the slip o' the tongue Samantha Bee (referencing Trump's relaxing of China tariffs) instead of taking aim with your paint-ball gun at the best President we have had in donkey's years! Here's a sweet treat many of your readers will enjoy! https://youtu.be/CyfLhKeFe9U
Oh my God, Dowd....how could someone be so wrong, day after day. Obama was a cancer on this country. Fortunately, term limits are implemented for the presidency. Mr. Trump is doing his best to repair the damage that Obama and his evil keystone kops have thrust upon us.
3
Oh, Dowd, you were and are a yuuuge part of the problem. The Orange One knew it all along and played you like a cello.
Seriously, are you still blaming all this on Barack Obama?
Like women, Obama, simply by virtue of having landed the job, was supposed to walk on water where no white man had walked before, perform miracles, or suffer the consequences.
I've come to believe that you are part of some sort of Sophocles chorus, unable to resist damnation of the righteous, while ruination by the Lord of the Underworld is taking place before your eyes.
Place your focus where it really counts. These are easy shots to take, but laziness thwarts greatness.
You're a great talent, Maureen. Please don't waste it on the trivial.
6
Ah, there you go again Maureen Dowd. You just couldn't wait to attack the Democrats -- Obama and Hilary -- again. Meanwhile, the corrupt, delusional narcissist you helped elect, Donald Trump, tries to destroy the Justice Department. Good job, Ms. Dowd. Keep up the good work.
Right.
4
The Messiah is no more.
3
Now you appreciate Obama.
We had Spock for 5 minutes. Now we have Kahn.
Your worst column ever, Ms. Dowd.
Barack Obama was humble enough to wonder if he should have waited to run for president. If he strived for too much.
Now we have a guy named Trump upending everything.
Who said Nazis were very fine people. Who obviously accepted Russia's help to win an election.
Trump is clearly unfit and unsuited.
Obama brought us back from a recession month by month that Trump has the nerve to take credit for.
You weren't helpful prior to the election. All of your columns derided his opponent Hillary Clinton, You wrote hundreds of articles crushing her year after year. Why?
Barack Obama was a mighty fine president for 8 years. Your friendly columns about Donald Trump helped elect the New Yorker. While you instead had hundreds vilifying Hillary. One media outlet had you at about 200 anti-Hillary articles
Meanwhile, under Trump, our democracy is at risk. I am disappointed in you. Easy fall back column today?
3
Ahhhhh, Maureen, there's another metaphor that fits Obama perfectly and that's a flim-flam man. He's Harold Hill who flits into town, selling non-existent marching band intruments to the gullible, and then leaving the town broke. I guess it doesn't surprise me that you fit the role of Marian the librarian well.
3
Wow, what a sour column on Obama, Maureen Dowd! Barack Hussein Obama was one of our better American angels. The worst angels are prevailing during Trump's presidency. Yep, only correct and true thing you wrote was that Obama was "just too good for us". Alas, Trump's people -- loyalists, red state candidates, iggeroadies -- will sweep the Mid-Terms no matter what the blue states do. Anger and ignorance are fueling Trump's voters. Even though the writing on the wall is saying "you have been judged and found wanting, Donald Trump!" Lord amighty we are missing President Obama and his singing "Amazing Grace" at funeral of Charleston Massacre victims. And the dreams of his father and mother. His black and white legacy to we pluribus unum. Can you imagine the big orange Mullet Man singing either "Amazing Grace" or even "Oh, Say Can You See" Maureen? Your choir, fevvenssake, is wishing you had discussed and dissed the supremo feckless female Roseanne Barr and the slip o' the tongue Samantha Bee (referencing Trump's relaxing of China tariffs) instead of taking aim with your paint-ball gun at the best President we have had in donkey's years! Here's a sweet treat many of your readers will enjoy!
https://youtu.be/CyfLhKeFe9U
1
Gee, Maureen, you despised Obama, and you hated Clinton even more. Earth to Maureen: they're gone. When are you going to get a grip? You caused this, just as much as the worst right wing talking head. Now, you're going to gripe some more. Don't you ever get tired?
You act like a typical Republican. You say things having no basis as if they are obviously true, like how it's stunning to you, just stunning, that Barack Obama does not understand his own historic rise to power. What? That doesn't even make any sense. Of course he understood it when he was elected, and he still understands it now. Sadly, the Tea Party Republicans, guided by the Newt Gingrich playbook on how to use language to denigrate your political opponents, were already entrenched in the House--so much so that Boehner finally gave up, quit, and went home to fix his lawnmower and find his way onto the board of some cannabis company so he can make a few bucks in his retirement. Hope you get to try a few samples, John, but remember--don't bogart that joint, it isn't polite.
If your hatred sustains you, Maureen, knock yourself out. Have your fun. Personally, I prefer popcorn. I'm watching this slow moving train wreck like it's a B movie.
Yes, Obama was too good for us. We are getting exactly what we deserve now, for sure.
I've read that you don't read the comments to the pieces you write because you're kinda shy. I'd say gutless is more like it. Which is how I'd describe this column.
14
Ms. Dowd, I am three years your senior, so we are contemporaries. I have been reading your columns in The Times as long as you have been writing them. Your talents have contributed to a great institution, and to the profession of journalism. But what has happened to you? Where is the keen sense of justice, and that fine craft of irony aimed at the right targets I used to see in your writing? In the midst of what must be the most debased and egregious defilements of the once diginfied office of the presidency you choose to take yet one more cheap shot at the man who perhaps most elevated the dignity of that office? You have lost your way. I hope you may find it because you are losing once loyal readers like me.
4
So bitter.
5
Obama was too good for us, says Ms. Dowd, with her characteristic snark. I guess she is much more happy with the con man in chief, Mr. Trump. But I get to wonder, after all these months of the non stop chaos surging from the Trump administration, why is Ms. Dowd writing about President Obama? Has her distaste for our first melanin endowed President have no bounds? Is she blind to our current state of presidential dysfunction? Is she hoping for a gig at Fox News? I am sick and tired of all the Trump apologists and their mendacious rhetoric, twisting themselves into pretzels to dissemble and deflect from our current dystopian reality. Enough is enough!
14
Obama's true legacy? A more racially divided America when he left the White House..125 BILLION DOLLARS to our greatest enemy in the Middle East, Iran,,,Ten TRILLION more National debt...a Health Care program that was scrapped the first year after he left office....and a Nobel Peace Prize for...for...what was that for again?
7
Can Mo Do be any more delusional? Just more evidence of the liberal press fawning over a guy with no significant accomplishments because of empty slogans. Hope and Change, Yes we can. I disagree he squandered his opportunity as president. He is who he is. A college lecturer who knows how to deliver a speech. He had no experience at getting anything done in his entire career. He is just a footnote in the history of presidents. His single biggest accomplishment is being the first biracial president. That about sums up his eight years.
8
echoing one reader from Montana (!!!) :
yeah, so what's your point?
I think I am done reading Ms. Dowd. She has proven again she is merely the queen of snark.
3
On the eve of Trump's inauguration, I got sick and went to the hospital. Four days later, home. Sick at heart, but recovering to some extent from being sick to my stomach.
Now, 16 months later, still feeling sick. How could this happen to our country? Like so many around the world, I grew up wondering how Hitler had happened. Now I see how. Sickening.
Maureen Dowd helped with her relentless bashing of the Clintons and of Obama. The NYT in general helped with the constant attempts at equivalence.
I didn't think I'd live to see our country brought low, but I have, and it is heartbreaking.
20
I have NEVER read such drivel in all my life. I thought at first she was kidding, but then I realized Ms Dowd is a "progressive democrat" and she was serious. Obama was the WORST president in my lifetime. He was incompetent, not ready to lead anything, voted in because of his color, got by in his horrid presidency because of his color and the fact the cowardly congress was afraid they would be called racist if they dared call him on his lawlessness and stop some of the ridiculous things he did and then we get this pandering article from the"great" Maureen Dowd who claims he was "just too good for us." No, Ms. Dowd, this country and her people (most of them) are too good to have a worthless president like he was, trying desperately to change this glorious land our forefathers bequeathed to us into something it was never meant to be, ruining our economy along the way, stirring up racial strife as only a community organizer can and something we may NEVER recover from, tearing the greatest health care system in the world to the horror it is today. THANK GOD PDJT is our president so maybe he can reverse the devastation this feckless man so arrogantly left in his wake.
2
Enough Dowd! I don't care if you are critiquing a new book by whoever the flavor of the minute is. I am so tired of your arrogance! All you do is pick decent people apart. In case you haven't noticed, we have a 5 year old in the white house who is zeroing in on our democracy, our freedoms and the rule of law like a guided missile! How nice you have the time for this drivel.
You look petty and pathetic when you could be offering something , if not helpful, at least something that doesn't give 45's crazy base more ammunition.
3
Dowd needs a new gig and the NYT needs a new columnist. She's been flogging the same dead dogs for far too long.
12
More Obamas, fewer Hillaries.
Imagine a world without the self-important Obamas, Clintons, Pelosis, Schumers, lib snowflakes, etc. that are all anti-American talk and no positive results. Ah, nirvana!
3
Why is Maureen still harping on Obama's failures like Trump does on Hillary?
I agree with the Antichrist quote. Obama and the Obamabot cult are still on some sort of choom high. History will reveal half the country was insane for eight years, but fortunately we survived.
4
Ms. Dowd is both wrong-headed and mean-spirited.
Why she is still employed is a mystery.
1
Reading Dowd completely fills my daily quota of comedy.
Barack Obama is the godless mans messiah. What a shallow world to live in.
3
Not ready for him yet? Not ready for redistribution of wealth, social justice, and wimpy foreign policies? No, definitely not ready. Obama got elected because he's a good-looking black guy that can read a good speech with or without the accent. Not because of any original ideas or noble aspirations. He flat out lied about Obamacare, he did a total 180 on homosexuals marrying one another, and "led from behind". The only thing special about Obama is how incredibly arrogant he is. Now that is something few people have, that total break from reality, from self-awareness. But in the liberal world mess up, move up. Obama will always be on top in their world.
15
this column is precisely why trump won. obama was a pathetic, pedantic globalist who had no care for regular americans. his insinuations and condescenstion were beyond off putting and so were his policy failures. he was held to no account by the media for his numerous failures....obama too good for us?! no, we're too good for obama. his legacy is destroyed in less than a year. trump is running the show and doing a much better job by all accounts save in the middle east. we are a nation of borders and laws. until you leftist mental patients understand that you will continue to have no success...but of course it's everyone else's fault you're failures right?
5
At the risk of having the #MeToo movement yank my membership card, I must say here and now that Ms. Dowd is clearly being hormonal in this column.
Mainly because she is hearing voices that she thinks are telling her what Obama REALLY meant.
Obama will always wonder if he should have treated the entire "Russia thing" beginning in 2014 differently.
Maybe to the reporters at the NY Times Hillary did not have an economic message. That's because they, like so much of the MSM in 2015-2016 found Trump lots more fun to cover and much better for their employer's bottom line (as the head of CBS actually said.)
If a Democrat left the mess in 2008 to a Republican and that Republican produced the recovery numbers Obama did after 8 years, they would put his face of the $10 bill and on Mt. Rushmore.
And throw in the Nobel Prize, too. For economics.
But, you know, gotta play ball with Trump or he won't invite you to his soirees where further name dropping for the next column can come from.
obama was the result of a feel good moment for the liberals and the wanna believe blacks. obama's record in government, what little there was of it, show a man who craved the spot light but did nothing to earn it. Liberals on a guilt trip chose obama and thought that they could shame the Nation in to electing him, which they did, ever though he did not even qualify in 2 different states to be on the ballot he was "elected". The fear of revolution by the blacks kept the Republicans in line and lead to the total disaster that became obama's 8 years of pure giveaways to foreign Nations and the total demoralization of the Nation. obama tried to destroy the Nation through his liberal and progressive ideas but lucky he was stopped short. Now with a true America President who is putting America first the Nation will recover as its doing and obama will be just a bad dream.
3
Oh please. I have nothing against him personally but his policies and the ever-growing list of scandals tells us all that he was just a man. Not a liberal God like Maureen and the NYT would like to have us believe. Poor economic policy, weak foreign policy but inspiring leader. His legacy will be nothing more than mediocre.
7
What an obnoxious column. Dowd's snarky tone is unjustified. I wish this columnist would do some reporting to make real use of the space she is given.
1
Thank you Ms. Dowd for all the Hillary bashing so we are left with a feckless twit with no intelligence as our President. Now that's something to be proud of while the World looks on.
10
What is the matter with us that Maureen thinks we need a decent and talented man like Obama to do even better than he did in order to escape her snide weightless opprobrium?
We really are "king hungry" when we can't take care of ourselves while a talented dedicated administration sets about doing right things for all of us...no partisan dirty tricks there. We need a daddy and mommy and shrink and guru, etc. all rolled into one for Maureen's taste.
Is there any blame anywhere than for the guy who worked hard and long to bring us serious long term gains...like the Paris Accord, the Iran nuclear deal, Obamacare, the TPP, etc. etc. while modeling rectitude and serious kindness.
What kind of bratty ungrateful children does Mother Maureen see in us? And where is her evaluation of the McConnell/Boehner obstruction machine and the vile right wing media swamp that has set about to destroy America as we know it for lo these decades now of dark and dirty lies..all with soulless Kochian values as their operating energy.
Maureen...you are a tiresome whiner.
9
Obama. Rhymes with, take your pick, "ineffective" and/or "egotistical."
The only thing that matters for a president is results. Obama didn't deliver. A decent man who gave great speeches. But speeches and decency don't matter much. Ask Jimmy Carter.
10
Yikes Maureen! Wasn’t sycophancy enough? You sound like Squeaky Frome. The guy was a well spoken idiot.
4
As opposed to the verbally challenged idiot?
1
Maureen has just created the definition of sycophantic drivel.
If you and yours had your way, Barry would be "Dear Leader" today and forever.
3
If our current times are not proof positive of the fact that the US was not ready for Barack Obama, I don't know what is. Trump might have been a floundering semi-joke as a candidate for presidency if he did not follow President Obama in an atmosphere primed by Fox News and assorted haters, sane and crazed by a Black president who dared to be smarter, cooler and much more of a mensch than they were.
I do not include Ms. Dowd among those haters, although she has never been a fan of Mr. Obama. After all, she is only an opinion columnist for the failing New York Times.
Well, once again, I'm asking myself why I read your column, Maureen, when I almost never agree with you. President Obama was not perfect, no president ever is, but he is light-years ahead of Trump in empathy, morality, intelligence, kindness, patriotism, sense of humor and HONESTY. Given a choice, I can't believe that most Americans, maybe even you, would not have him back in a second.
15
Sorry Maureen, but I think Obama is right. We are not ready to hear the truth, and Obama knew it.
We were not ready to understand that in the global, connected, and supremely vast world, our 320 million people out of 7 billion did not make us the kings of the universe.
We were wrong not to recognize the scope of change we have to make to compete for relevance, jobs, wealth in a world in which at least 3 billion people have decided to join the modern manufacturing and service industries are a very low standard of living.
We were not ready to think about the reality that we have to, every one of us working stiffs, compete for relevance against the top 10% of other nations' workforces, which means education and commitment.
We were not ready to accept that things like healthcare can not be part of job cost or we won't have jobs; and that we cannot mandate factories and at the same time mandate an economy that maximizes short term gain.
Or that we are not able to just decree that other nations fall in line with out interests, because we are just that great, that exceptional.
Obama was a realist, a pragmatist, and oddly an idealist. H
11
"...OBama didn't like pursuading people to do what he wanted them to do."
Look out for what SEEMS to work. In my experience, coercing, manipulating, persuading anyone to do something they don't want to do is problematic. Too often cajoling/forcing someone to do something seems to work initially. But eventually people will rebel. Far better the long term solution of providing information, education, allowing that to sink in so that people will change because they believe in themselves.
Change IS hard. Like turning an ocean freighter around, change takes time, hope, faith, patience.
3
Like many NYT readers, I'm truly grateful to see that Maureen Down has retreated to her usual comfort zone--in a single column, she derides Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
During eight years of the Obama presidency, she mocked him as "Bambi," the homophobic inference lost on nobody; and for decades she has treated Ms. Clinton as either unprincipled, dull, corrupt or as a diseased hag in Ms. Dowd's imaginary political brothel.
It's no accident that once a year Ms. Dowd turns over her space to her brother, Kevin, so he can vomit up the resentments and hatreds of the Trumpian Right. Ms. Dowd loves her brother, and, in her heart of hearts, she loves Donald Trump. What a surprise.
4
Like our current president, Ms. Dowd, you're a windbag pathetically finding fault with the past in order to justify the present. You deserve each other. The unfortunate fact is that the rest of us have to live with you both.
5
Your inferences about benign observations reveal more about your lack of character than they do do about Obama.
3