I recently read a column by Ron Grossman of the Chicago Tribune. Mr. Grossman, a former history professor, has little patience for people who describe President Obama as “the worst president in American history.” He noted these folks don’t contrast Mr. Obama’s record with those of other presidents, and asserted they may be motivated by racism.
“When someone gives passing grades to John Tyler and James Buchanan and flunks Barack Obama, I strongly suspect he isn’t judging their accomplishments against their faults. He is not doing the math; he is looking at their skin color,” Mr. Grossman wrote. Read the full column right here.
I can’t say I buy Mr. Grossman’s racism theory.
During his successful 2008 campaign, candidate Obama pledged to restore competence to the White House and make politics more civil. For some time, it has been clear President Obama failed to follow through.
For starters, the U.S. economy, which famously was in a free fall when the president took office, continues to underperform. While the budget deficit has been reduced on the president’s watch, the long-term outlook is not good. In late January, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projected the deficit will increase from $544 billion to $1.4 trillion by 2026. (The deficit was $1.3 trillion at the time of Mr. Obama’s first inauguration.) This will result in an increase in the national debt, which already exceeds $19 trillion. A strong case can be made that Mr. Obama failed to lead on this issue.
Elsewhere on the domestic front, the president admitted he and his allies made mistakes in crafting the 2010 Obamacare legislation. Another signature domestic law, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, was riddled with sloppiness.
The 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden not withstanding, Mr. Obama’s foreign policy also has been cringe-inducing. The president consistently has projected weakness on the world stage, as we detailed in an editorial published Jan. 3. His mishandling of the 2013 Syria crisis was especially troubling.
For all his campaign talk about courtliness, Mr. Obama has exhibited quite a mean streak. He has a long record of making decidedly uncivil comments about people who dared to disagree with him. The Internal Revenue Service‘s harassment of conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status between 2010 and 2012 was systemic, and almost certainly had at least tacit approval from the White House. On a related note, the president hasn’t done much to develop personal relationships with other Washington, D.C., players, regardless of party.
In this environment, all Americans have good reason to be angry, disappointed and frustrated. That’s not to say I agree with people who claim Mr. Obama is the worst president of all time. As Mr. Grossman noted, a number of other presidents were “nonentities.” In addition to Messrs. Tyler and Buchanan, he cited Richard Nixon, Ulysses Grant and Warren Harding; I would add Andrew Johnson to that list. Nonetheless, it is a stretch to say all, or even most, members of the “Obama’s the worst” crowd are motivated by racism.
My sense is these folks simply are caught up in the moment and/or are ignorant of history. Those constitute legitimate grounds for criticism, but tagging them as racists seems appallingly unfair.
