Obama believes that all of Trump’s successes are due to Obama, and all of Trump’s setbacks are his own.
"Former president Barack Obama recently continued his series of public broadsides against his successor, President Donald Trump.
. . .
"Still, after 22 months, no one knows what the final verdict will be on the Trump administration. So it seems wise to wait until Trump’s four-year term is over before weighing in on his legacy or lack of one.
"By the same token, the frenetic Obama should take a deep breath, stop arguing the past, and allow history to adjudicate his own eight-year economic and foreign-policy record.
"Given that Obama was a strong progressive while Trump surprisingly has proven to be a hard-right conservative, their presidencies offer a sort of laboratory of contrasting worldviews.
"History will decide whether a more managed or more deregulated economy works best. We will learn whether a focus on traditional energy sources is preferable to an emphasis on subsidized green energy.
"In recent times, Republican ex-presidents — Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush — left the limelight at the end of their tenures. They kept silent about their successors, and they allowed history to be the judge of their relative successes or failures. Reagan and the younger Bush often were ensconced on their ranches in out-of-the-way places. Obama would do well to buy a ranch, too.
"In contrast, progressive ex-presidents such as Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Obama saw the presidency as a never-ending story. Politics were a 24/7, 360-degree, all-encompassing experience. All envisioned their retirements as opportunities to relitigate their administrations and to politick the present in hopes that future kindred presidencies would be progressive and would continue their own agendas.
"Carter frequently warned that the Reagan defense buildup and tough stance toward the Soviet Union were dangerous and would lead to an existential confrontation.
"Clinton became a fierce critic of the Iraq War as his wife Hillary prepared to enter the 2008 presidential race as an anti-Bush candidate.
"Obama still seeks to convince the country that Trump is “unfit” to be president." . . .
NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author, most recently, of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won. @vdhanson
No comments:
Post a Comment