By Raynard Jackson
In many ways Obama’s presidency has been historic.
On June 19, 2008, Obama became the first major-party presidential candidate to turn down public financing in the general election since the system was created in 1976.
On Thursday, August 28, 2008, Obama became the first Black to be nominated by a major U.S. party.
On November 4, 2008, Obama won the presidency with 365 electoral votes to 173 for Sen. John McCain, becoming the first Black to be elected president of the United States. Earlier, Obama won 52.9 percent of the popular vote to McCain’s 45.7 percent.
Sonia Sotomayor, nominated by Obama on May 26, 2009, to replace retiring Associate Justice David Souter, was confirmed on August 6, 2009, making her the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice.
On October 9, 2009, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that Obama had won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
On November 6, 2012, Obama won 332 electoral votes, exceeding the 270 required for him to be re-elected as president. With 51.1 percent of the popular vote, Obama became the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to twice win the majority of the popular vote.
During his second inaugural address on January 21, 2013, Obama called for full equality for gay Americans: “Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.” This, too, was a historic moment. It was the first time that a president mentioned gay rights or the word “gay” in an inaugural address.
But for all of Obama’s firsts, at the same time, he has left people scratching their heads, especially Blacks.
How could the first Black president not even interview a Black female for either of the two Supreme Court openings he had to fill? After all, Black women were the largest voting bloc for both of his presidential elections (96 percent in 2012).
Obama promised during his 2008 campaign that his administration would be the “most transparent in history.” According to a recently released report by the Associated Press, nothing could be further from the truth. The AP calls the Obama administration “the most secretive presidency in American history.”
The AP analyzed 99 federal agencies over six years. According to their report, “the Obama administration censored more documents and delayed or denied access to more government files than ever before. In 2013, the administration cited national security concerns a record 8,496 times as an excuse for withholding information from the public. That’s a 57% increase over the year before and more than double the number in Obama’s first year in office.
According to several media accounts, Obama has launched more than 390 drone attacks in his almost six years in the White House, eight times as many as the Bush administration; and there have been more than 2,400 people killed in these air strikes, many of them civilians.
Obama has signed at least three executive orders giving entitlements to homosexuals, at least two giving entitlements to those in the country illegally, and zero specifically for Blacks. Obama will go down in history as the first U.S. president to totally ignore his largest voting bloc and be allowed to get away with it.
Obama will also go down in history as one of the most lawless presidents in history (Benghazi, I.R.S., NSA, etc.). He has done more damage to the U.S.’s standing in the world than any other president in history. No one fears Obama.
Russian President Vadimir Putin thumbs his nose at Obama and marches into the Ukraine. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has total disdain, publically and privately, for Obama. Foreign leaders – including the presidents of Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador – are not afraid to chastise Obama while standing on White House grounds when they disagree with his policies.
Obama seems to think our sovereignty should be sublimated to other countries or their people, i.e., illegals in the country telling America they have a right to be in the U.S., feeling entitled to be in the U.S. even though they crossed our borders illegally or overstaying their visas.
Obama thinks he is the president of the world, not just the U.S. This is one possible explanation for why he is so hell-bent on trying to give amnesty to those in the country illegally or unilaterally trying to make homosexuality a universal entitlement. He and the Democrats really believe that we are responsible for the plight of the world, even at the expense of ignoring our own citizens who are in dire need of jobs, food, housing, education, and a crime free environment.
So, indeed Obama’s presidency is historic, but not for all the right reasons.
Raynard Jackson is president & CEO of Raynard Jackson & Associates, LLC., a Washington, D.C.-based public relations/government affairs firm. He can be reached through his Web site, www.raynardjackson.com. You can also follow him on Twitter @raynard1223.
