World

Barack Obama got things done

The final episode of "Inside Obama's White House" tells us that he was often frustrated by the system, but achieved more than many allege

April 05, 2016
President Barack Obama listens as he meets with members of Congress for a roundtable discussion about immigration reform, June 25, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)  This official White House photograph is being made available for publicati
President Barack Obama listens as he meets with members of Congress for a roundtable discussion about immigration reform, June 25, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) This official White House photograph is being made available for publicati
Read a review of the previous episode of "Inside Obama's White House"

“You and I we’re going to change this country. And we’re going to change the world.” In choosing to begin each episode of the BBC’s “Inside Obama’s White House” with Barack Obama’s own words, given in a speech during his first election campaign, the documentary's makers remind us of the fundamental problem of his entire presidency: the reality was never going to match the rhetoric. Obama promised too much; he was always going to underdeliver.

However this episode—titled The arc of history—opens with one of Obama’s greatest successes: the assassination of Osama bin Laden. The exceptional access that has been the hallmark of the series—and which here includes interviews with Obama himself, as well as former CIA and Director and Secretary of Defence, Leon Panetta—makes it clear the President took a gamble when he ordered in the SEAL team into the Pakistani town of Abbottabad. As Obama recounts, it was only ever “50-50” that bin Laden was in the strange and slightly sinister compound located by the intelligence services.

But this success only serves to further illuminate Obama’s failures. Because even with a degree of uncertainty it is far easier to take someone out militarily than it is to bring real change to your country: especially when you have to deal with a hostile legislature and powerful lobby groups. This truth has been reaffirmed many times: one such instance was in the wake of the horrific Sandy Hook school shooting, in which 20 children were killed by that Golem of American life: the lone gunman.

Naturally appalled, Obama signed 23 Executive Orders aimed at some measure of gun control and attempted to push similar legislation through the House. But as the narrator reminds us, in 2012 the pro-gun National Rifle Association spent $32 million on pro-gun lobbying. Senators supporting the families of the Sandy Hook victims had to warn them that ambitious gun control legislation wouldn’t pass congress. In the end it was worse than that: even a modest proposal to extend background checks on gun buyers was defeated. “A pretty shameful day for Washington” said Obama. Well, quite.

As the programme runs into its next sequence Obama is again moved to anger, exploding at his Secretary of Defence: “I am President of the United States. I am the leader of the free world and I can’t get anything done.” This latest frustration comes at his inability to pass yet another progressive measure—an improvement for homosexuals in the military. For long stretches of his tenure, as Obama faced an implacably hostile Republican party, it seems as if the words in his outburst could be the tagline for his presidency. The leitmotif of this series could almost be that the most powerful among us are sometimes rendered powerless. Almost.

The series does a wonderful job of bringing the dysfunctional nature of US politics into sharp focus. It’s hard to recall a US president who has faced as much opposition as Obama—not to mention ludicrous (and often racist) conspiracy theories that claim he is a secret Muslim, or wasn't born in the United States. Many in the Republican Party really do seem to consider him as something far worse than a political opponent: they see him as more akin to a foreign enemy, say.

But here’s the thing.  When success does come—and it does—it comes at the cost of having to forego cross-party cooperation. The story of Obama’s attempts to push through immigration reform is the story of his presidency in a single tale. Eager to allow immigrant children to obtain US citizenship, he first seeks Republican partners to push through the relevant legislation. And for a while it seems that it might work. But then a key Republican ally loses his seat to a Tea Party candidate. The rest is depressingly predictable.

So Obama waited and waited. He did everything he could to achieve some sort of consensus but when it didn’t come he acted nonetheless: he executive action and overrides the house. He gets it done, but he gets it done by himself. The legislative system just won’t allow for anything else.

As the series draws to a close a brief, final montage reminds the viewer of Obama’s successes: notably the tens of millions of Americans that now have health insurance thanks to Obamacare—as well as his failures: notably his decision not to act in Syria as hundreds of thousands have been killed. The picture that emerges is of a White House led by an exceptionally able and charismatic man who achieved much—often by going beyond the sclerotic system he was stuck with and forging ahead on his own—but nonetheless failed to deliver on everything he promised. These promises, and the uplifting rhetoric in which they were carried, soared too high for the tawdry realities of Washington. They bore little relation to reality. And the United States is the poorer for it.

Now read: Why Obama is taking gun control into his own hands