During the Obama years, the clarion cry from the partisan right was that President Obama was “leading from behind,” that he was the “Appeaser in Chief.” Although he pulled the country from the brink of economic disaster and led an economic recovery, including a steady decrease in the rate of unemployment that seemed almost super human, he continued to receive taunts from the majority of the GOP leadership that his Administration’s foreign policy in negotiating the Iranian Nuclear Deal, the Paris Climate Accord and the TPP (the Trans-Pacific Partnership) were woefully flawed, naïve and not in the best interests of the United States of America.
It should be noted that the Obama Administration served two complete terms in office without scandal or being under the investigation of a Special Counsel. The Obama White House served the nation with grace and dignity. The staffers who worked for President Obama seemed genuinely honored to “serve”, and by comparison to the current White House’s daily drama of nasty language, appearances of corruption, self dealing, mixed messaging, and the inability to admit mistakes or missteps and take responsibility for things said and done, the Obama White House always operated at a significantly higher level of competency and stature. Pundits and historians all concede that this Presidency and this White House operate in ways that are, to use an overused word in reference to our current President and his administration, unprecedented in American history.
Everyday we are met with new disclosures about policy and practices in the current administration that push the boundaries of legality and decorum. The Deal Maker in Chief continues to garner financial benefit and economic gain for himself and his family at the expense of the American taxpayer because it appears that this White House is definitely for sale. The Emoluments Clause of the Constitution “that prohibits the federal government from granting titles of nobility, and restricts members of the government from receiving gifts, emoluments, offices or titles from foreign states without the consent of the United States Congress” has been, if not completely violated by the current administration, this President, his Cabinet, and ignored by the United States Congress, it has absolutely been pressed to the limit of discretion and decorum.
Private golf trips at privately-owned golf properties and country clubs where the U.S. taxpayer foots the bill, Heads of State and NGO officials worldwide now pay to stay within blocks of the White House at a property owned by the President and whose family and private businesses are the beneficiaries of the substantial profits gained, have taken the level of graft, bribery and gutter style politics beyond what should be legal or acceptable to the standard of statesmanship and public service. It would be hard to deny that we have a Kleptocracy.
Unfortunately, Twitter has NOW become the most dominant communication tool and instrument for the declaration of both public and foreign policy by the man who is, arguably the most powerful (hu) man in the world. It’s Unbelievable. It’s Unacceptable. And it has definitely lowered the bar to subterranean levels and cheapened the office of the American Presidency. It has given rise to a new characterization of the current Administration as “Leading from the Gutter.”
