Category Archives: Obama
President Obama Legacy
Aside from ObamaCare, most of President Obama’s legacy was achieved through executive fiat.
Except for the Nobel Peace Prize. And even the guy responsible for that has had second thoughts.
The Iran Nuclear deal would have had staying power as a treaty with two thirds U.S. Senate approval. But Obama couldn’t get that. So he settled for the authority of a narrative by aspiring novelist Ben Rhodes.
Here’s Dan Henninger in the WSJ:
The Iran nuclear deal is just that—a deal Mr. Obama did with the mullahs, Russia, Germany, France, the U.K. and China, with no formal instrument of ratification.
And the same goes for the Paris Climate Accord:
The Paris climate agreement is an “accord” with so little domestic support that even some Democrats would have voted “no” if Mr. Obama had submitted it to the Senate for approval.
President Obama Legacy
Not that Trump has any better luck getting the approval of Congress. But then, he doesn’t need it. He’s unraveling the Obama Legacy with the same pen and phone Obama used to create it.
American Credibility Erosion
President Obama accused President Trump of eroding American credibility by pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal. But his views on eroding credibility must have evolved.
American Credibility
In 2009 Obama wanted to reset relations with Russia. So he pulled out of Bush’s missile defense deal with Poland and the Czech Republic.
Stormy White House
The WSJ says, President Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid $130,000 to porn star Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels. Stormy says the payment was part of an agreement to keep quiet about an “encounter” between the two in 2006.
Better Offer for Stormy?
But now she wants out of the deal because she says Trump never signed it.
The Washington Post reported Hillary Clinton’s campaign hid payments through a lawyer too. The campaign’s law firm Perkins Coi paid Fusion GPS to make noise by digging dirt on Trump before the election. Fusion GPS in turn hired the British spy Christopher Steel who produced the “salacious” dossier used to gain FISA court permission to spy on Trump associates.
According to a new book, Russian Roulette, by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hillary was following in big footsteps. The Obama campaign had hired the same firm to dig dirt on Mitt Romney.
North Korean Reset
President Trump Hits Global Reset Button from Paris to Pyongyang. At least that’s the way a headline in The Hill sees it.
The article is by former Trump Staffer Sebastian Gorka. He claims that if you want to understand The Donald you have to read Art of the Deal. And once you’ve done that you’ll know it’s all about the objective:
The negotiations themselves, or maintaining the established way of doing business, are never the objectives. The real objective is defined by realizing your interests, which may not be possible if the status quo is maintained.
Russian Overcharge
For example, Hillary’s reset (or overcharge) with Russia didn’t achieve an objective.
President Obama sent Hillary Clinton to present a mislabeled “reset button” to the Kremlin. In reality, there was no reset. The Obama administration did not effectively address the expansionist and destabilizing behavior of former KGB colonel Vladimir Putin, not even after he invaded Ukraine.
But Gorka has way more faith in a Trump reset with North Korea:
It is a reset that included tough talk with China and North Korea, talk followed up by actions that have led to a response on behalf of Pyongyang, which may take us to the cusp of bringing peace and stability to the region after 65 years of potential war.
But whatever you do with Dear Leader, don’t go all Madeline Albright. 
The whole thing seemed more upset than reset with Secretary of State Tillerson. He was traveling in Africa when he learned of the dotard’s decision to meet the rocket man. 
So he called in sick.
By The Book
Susan Rice didn’t let the door hit her on the way out of the White House. Instead she sent herself an email.
It was time stamped 12:15 pm January 21 – the day of President Trump’s inauguration. And her self-message recapped a January 5 meeting President Obama held with top staffers.
By the Book
In that meeting Obama instructed his staff on the transfer of information to the new administration. Or the non-transfer of information as National Review’s Andrew McCarthy suspects.
At any rate, Susan Rice let the record show that President Obama insisted it be done “by the book.”
