Obama's legacy: complete world disorder

(Hat tip: KimR) - State of the world, Year Eight of Barack Obama: (1) In the South China Sea, on a speck of land of disputed sovereignty far from its borders, China has just installed anti-aircraft batteries and stationed fighter jets. Read more at Las Vegas Review-Journal Read More......

Justice Scalia, Political Philosopher and Political Football

(Hat tip: KimR) - It is difficult to summarize briefly such a monumental career as that of Justice Antonin Scalia, let alone to do so not with the distance of history but in the heat of the most heated of political moments – in the midst of a presidential campaign, on the evening of a potentially make-or-break primary debate, and in the middle of a Supreme Court Term with many big cases that could end 4-4 without him. But for a man who was quick with the pen and the barb from the bench, perhaps it was meant to be that way. Read more at National Review Read More......

Bitter Clingers 2.0

Barack Obama in the final stretch of his 2008 primary campaign explained away-off the record in an unguarded moment-his unpopularity in Pennsylvania. The problem then was a biased "them"-not so much the hard-left policies and principles of Barack Obama. These narrow-minded clingers were supposedly not fond of Obama and similar others "who aren't like them."

Read more at PJ Media
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Trade ministers reached a landmark agreement on a deal that’s a cornerstone of Obama’s legacy

Pacific trade ministers have reached a deal on the most sweeping trade liberalization pact in a generation that will cut trade barriers and set common standards for 12 countries, an official familiar with the talks said on Monday. --Leaders from a dozen Pacific Rim nations are poised to announce the pact later on Monday. The deal could reshape industries and influence everything from the price of cheese to the cost of cancer treatments.

Read more at Business Insider
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Obama’s Syria achievement

This may be the most surprising of President Obama’s foreign-policy legacies: not just that he presided over a humanitarian and cultural disaster of epochal proportions, but that he soothed the American people into feeling no responsibility for the tragedy. --Starvation in Biafra a generation ago sparked a movement. Synagogues and churches a decade ago mobilized to relieve misery in Darfur. When the Taliban in 2001 destroyed ancient statues of Buddha at Bamiyan, the world was appalled at the lost heritage.

Read more at the Washington Post
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Nigerian Activist on Africa and Presidential Legacies: Bush Fought AIDS, Obama Promoted Homosexual Agenda

President George W. Bush, rather than President Barack Obama, will be best remembered for a legacy of having helped the African people, a Nigerian civil rights activist and attorney said on Tuesday. --“President Bush will really be remembered as the president who had the most impact on Africa of the last three presidents,” said Emmanuel Obege. “I think they’re no doubt about it.”

Read more at CNS News
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WSJ: Reagan's Legacy and the Current Malaise

WALL STREET JOURNAL/OPINION, 3/22/2011 by Steve Forbes - Lower taxes and a strong dollar could spur growth once again.

Today, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, the Manhattan Institute and The Wall Street Journal will host a morning seminar concerning the economic legacy of Ronald Reagan. The get-together couldn't be timelier. Read more at WSJ...

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The Long View

Advisory thoughts on the 43rd president.
National Review Online, August 31, 2007 - Karl Rove wrote,

The Washington Post scorned President Truman as a “spoilsman” who “underestimated the people’s intelligence.” New York Times columnist James Reston wrote off President Eisenhower as “a tired man in a period of turbulence.” At the end of President Reagan’s second term, the New York Times dismissed him as “simplistic” and a “lazy and inattentive man.”

These harsh judgments, made in the moment, have not weathered well over time. Fortunately, while contemporary observers have a habit of getting presidents wrong, history tends to be more accurate.

So how might history view the 43rd president? I can hardly be considered an objective observer, but in this highly polarized period, who is?

However, I believe history will provide a more clear-eyed verdict on this president’s leadership than the anger of current critics would suggest. Continued...

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