Finally O-ver: Obama Leaves U.S.A $9,335,000,000,000 Deeper in Debt

Rebuffed, rebuked and rejected by the American people, one can’t help but snicker recalling Obama declaring that Trump would never be elected President. He thought he could dictate that edict to the American people. So consumed is he with himself, he clucks about his approval ratings conveniently ignoring the loss of over 1000 Democrats seats, thanks largely, to his disastrous foreign and domestic polices. If he is ‘popular ‘its because he behaved more like a celebrity not a president. All of his soft-ball publicity appearances on popular TV and talk shows mimicked a Hollywood movie star’s press tour. He never did serious, challenging media — he was never presidential, he was more like a movie star. Which is what makes his disparaging “celebrity” remarks against Trump even more laughable..

In point of fact, Obama’s presidency was very real and very damaging and it will a Herculean Trump to reverse the damage, The extent of the damage he as done is unknowable. President Barack Obama will leave the federal government approximately $9,335,000,000,000 deeper in debt than it was when he took office eight years ago, according to data released today by the U.S. Treasury. Obamacare is a disaster, the long-term consequences of his socialized healthcare program is unknowable.  The catastrophic consequences of aiding, arming and abetting the Iranian savage mullocracy is unknowable. The death toll and human suffering at the hands of the rise and success of the Islamic State is unknowable. The danger Israel finds itself in after betrayed at the UN is unknowable. The effect of the rise of jihad armies in Africa and the Middle East is unknowable. But what we do know is it’s horrible.

Charles Krauthammer broke it down like this:

Obama’s self-revealing final act

Barack Obama did not go out quietly. His unquiet final acts were, in part, overshadowed by a successor who refused to come in quietly and, in part, by Obama’s own endless, sentimental farewell tour. But there was nothing nostalgic or sentimental about Obama’s last acts. Two of them were simply shocking.

Perhaps we should have known. At the 2015 White House correspondents’ dinner, he joked about whether he had a bucket list: “Well, I have something that rhymes with bucket list.”

Turns out, he wasn’t kidding. Commuting the sentence of Chelsea Manning, one of the great traitors of our time, is finger-in-the-eye willfulness. Obama took 28 years off the sentence of a soldier who stole and then released through WikiLeaks almost half a million military reports plus a quarter-million State Department documents.

The cables were embarrassing; the military secrets were almost certainly deadly. They jeopardized the lives not just of American soldiers on two active fronts — Iraq and Afghanistan — but of locals who were, at great peril, secretly aiding and abetting us. After Manning’s documents release, the Taliban “went on a killing spree” (according to intelligence sources quoted by Fox News) of those who fit the description of individuals working with the United States.

Moreover, we will be involved in many shadowy conflicts throughout the world. Locals will have to choose between us and our enemies. Would you choose a side that is so forgiving of a leaker who betrays her country — and you?

President Obama said he felt comfortable commuting the sentence of Chelsea Manning, the former U.S. military intelligence analyst who was responsible for a 2010 leak of classified materials. President Obama said he felt comfortable commuting the sentence of Chelsea Manning. (Reuters)

Even the word “leaker” is misleading. “Leak” makes it sound like a piece of information a whistleblower gives Woodward and Bernstein to expose misdeeds in high office. This was nothing of the sort. It was the indiscriminate dumping of a mountain of national security secrets certain to bring harm to American troops, allies and interests.

Obama considered Manning’s 35-year sentence excessive. On the contrary. It was lenient. Manning could have been — and in previous ages, might well have been — hanged for such treason. Now she walks after seven years.

What makes this commutation so spectacularly in-your-face is its hypocrisy. Here is a president who spent weeks banging the drums over the harm inflicted by WikiLeaks with its release of stolen materials and emails during the election campaign. He demanded a report immediately. He imposed sanctions on Russia. He preened about the sanctity of the American political process.

Over what? What exactly was released? A campaign chairman’s private emails and Democratic National Committee chatter, i.e., campaign gossip, backbiting, indiscretions and cynicism. The usual stuff, embarrassing but not dangerous. No national security secrets, no classified material, no exposure of anyone to harm, just to ridicule and opprobrium.

The other last-minute Obama bombshell occurred four weeks earlier when, for the first time in nearly a half-century, the United States abandoned Israel on a crucial Security Council resolution, allowing the passage of a condemnation that will plague both Israel and its citizens for years to come. After eight years of reassurance, Obama seized the chance — free of political accountability for himself and his potential Democratic successor — to do permanent damage to Israel. (The U.S. has no power to reverse the Security Council resolution.)

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. who went on to be a great Democratic senator, once argued passionately that in the anti-American, anti-democratic swamp of the U.N., America should act unwaveringly in opposition and never give in to the jackals. Obama joined the jackals.

Why? To curry favor with the international left? After all, Obama leaves office as a relatively young man of 55. His next chapter could very well be as a leader on the international stage, perhaps at the U.N. (secretary-general?) or some transnational (ostensibly) human rights organization. What better demonstration of bona fides than a gratuitous attack on Israel? Or the about-face on Manning and WikiLeaks? Or the freeing of a still unrepentant Puerto Rican terrorist, Oscar Lopez Rivera, also pulled off with three days remaining in his presidency.

For the first time in 36 years, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution critical of Israel’s Jewish settlements on Palestinian territory. The United States abstained. The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution critical of Israel’s Jewish settlements on Palestinian territory. The United States abstained. (Reuters)

A more likely explanation, however, is that these are acts not of calculation but of authenticity. This is Obama being Obama. He leaves office as he came in: a man of the left, but possessing the intelligence and discipline to suppress his more radical instincts. As of Nov. 9, 2016, suppression was no longer necessary.

We’ve just gotten a glimpse of his real self. From now on, we shall see much more of it.