President Barack Obama |
INTRODUCTION: The Obama We Don't Know
From the Washington Examiner
From the Washington Examiner
Few if any of his predecessors took the oath
of office with higher public hopes for his success than President Obama on Jan.
20, 2009.
Millions of Americans hailed his election as
an end to partisanship, a renewal of the spirit of compromise and a
reinvigoration of the nation's highest ideals at home and abroad.
Above all, as America's first black chief
executive, Obama symbolized the healing of long-festering wounds that were the
terrible national legacy of slavery, the Reconstruction Era and Jim Crow. We
would be, finally, one nation.
But after nearly four years in office, Obama
has become a sharply polarizing figure.
His admirers believe he deserves a special
place alongside Wilson, the Roosevelts and LBJ as one of the architects of
benevolent government.
His critics believe he is trying to remake
America in the image of Europe's social democracies, replacing America's ethos
of independence and individual enterprise with a welfare state inflamed by
class divisions.
In an effort to get a clearer picture of
Obama -- his shaping influences, his core beliefs, his political ambitions and
his accomplishments -- The Washington Examiner conducted a four-month inquiry,
interviewing dozens of his supporters and detractors in Chicago and elsewhere,
and studying countless court transcripts, government reports and other official
documents.
Over the years and in two autobiographies,
Obama has presented himself to the world as many things, including radical
community organizer, idealistic civil rights lawyer, dynamic reformer in the
Illinois and U.S. senates, and, finally, the cool presidential voice of
postpartisan hope and change.
With his air of reasonableness and
moderation, he has projected a remarkably likable persona. Even in the midst of
a historically dirty campaign for re-election, his likability numbers remain
impressive, as seen in a recent AP-GFK Poll that found 53 percent of adults
have a favorable view of him.
But beyond the spin and the polls, a starkly
different picture emerges. It is a portrait of a man quite unlike his image,
not a visionary reformer but rather a classic Chicago machine pol who thrives
on rewarding himself and his friends with the spoils of public office, and who
uses his position to punish his enemies.
Peter Schweizer captures this other Obama
with a bracing statistic in his book "Throw Them All Out," published
last year. In the Obama economic stimulus program's Department of Energy loans,
companies owned and run by Obama contributors and friends, like Solyndra's
George Kaiser, received $16.4 billion. Those not linked to the president got
only $4.1 billion. The Energy Department is far from the only federal program
in which favoritism has heavily influenced federal grants.
To paraphrase Tammany Hall's George
Washington Plunkitt, Obama has seen his opportunities and taken them, over and
over.
- Mark Tapscott / Executive Editor (Washington Examiner)
NEXT >: CHAPTER I Obama's Childhood of Privilege, Not Hardship
Posted at RandomAmmo for easy reading. From the original series published by The Washington Examiner
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