Barack Obama under fire 

WASHINGTON – As the United States of America president for the last 4-1/2 years, Obama has faced accusation after accusation of impinging on civil liberties, disappointing his liberal Democratic base and providing fodder for rival Republicans as he deals with the realities of office.

When he took office in 2009, Obama promised to close the Guantanamo camp but it remains open. Today, Obama says he will revisit that pledge and blames Congress for blocking his plan. Under his presidency, we have seen aerial drone strikes abroad, in places such as Pakistan and Yemen. We have seen repeated seizure of journalists’ files and phone records.

Even though there were reasons to think Obama would have been different from some of his predecessors, because of his background and because of what he said during the electoral campaign, we have to realize he his no different from some presidents like George W. or Nixon when it comes to balancing national security and individual liberties issues.

Obama is no Clinton and no Kennedy and his marketing and preaching approach of the presidency will never make up for his mistakes. Obama is now facing the realities of being president. When he won his place as the first African-American in the White House, many Americans applauded another advance in the country’s long civil rights movement. Since then, while Obama is still trying to present himself as a progressive Democrat, he has not been very successful at representing himself as a fiery civil libertarian. Under his presidency, there has been a constant effort from the Obama’s administration to control the message.

Even though Hilary would have been a better president than Obama and the fact that Sarah could not have done worse, whatever the situation, compared to the abuse of the George W. Bush-era, the Watergate scandal during Richard Nixon’s administration and the Iran-contra controversy during Ronald Reagan’s years, we still in the minor-abuse league.

Lets see, what will happen next.

JMD

Michel Ouellette JMD
Public Affairs & Communications
Columnist, Novelist, and Futurist

 jmdlive@lefuturistedailynews.com