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| This is not my favorite portrait, but this is how I feel about legacy |
But what about me? What about my legacy? That is the question.
It's time I looked in the mirror and spoke truth to power.
About the Scandals
My confidante and White House aide, Valerie Jarrett, was very kind to say that there were no scandals that marked my eight years in the White House. But that isn't quite true. There've been many scandals and I want to tell it all. Maybe I've forgotten a few, but here's my own list of scandals.
- Fast and Furious - with guns walked across the border into Mexico ending with the killing of our own
- IRS targeting of Tea Party and Conservative groups - yes, there was more than a smidgen of proof
- The anti-Muslim video that was not the cause of the Benghazi affair - we tried to blame it on Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the filmmaker and we put him in jail, but he was only our fall guy. And, no, I can't tell you where I was while the Benghazi special mission compound was under attack by terrorists. That may be the biggest scandal of all.
- The fix was in not to charge Hillary for her extreme negligence in using a private server against government regulations and without real protection against hacking. At least I used a fake name when I emailed with her.
- Exchanging five bad dudes - the Taliban Five - from Guantanamo for Bowe Bergdahl, who his fellow soldiers said he was a deserter. We released five top enemy combatants to Doha, Qatar, but who knows where they'll be in a year or two. Keep an eye out for Abdul Haq Wasiq, Norullah Noori, Mohammad Fazl, Khairullah Khairkhwa, Mohammad Nabi Omari.
- Failure to take action on the red line in Syria and the green revolution in Iran. I talked loud, but I did nothing. The failure to honor my red line ended up in the Aleppo tragedy. I gave $400 million to the Iran mullahs as a bribe to get our soldiers out of captivity. And then I returned $150 billion to those same mullahs who will now give large chunks of that money to continue their funding of Middle East terrorist groups.
- The ability to manipulate the electorate came easy when you have articulate gurus, like Jonathan Gruber. He made it easy for me to say that Americans would keep their health care insurance and their doctors if they wanted. It was never so.
About the Mistake in Governing by Pen and Phone
We all know that I had both the House and the Senate in 2009 and we were able to muscle through the Affordable Care Act - my own Obamacare - and then Dodd-Frank. Health care and consumer care. And somehow our control evaporated and as everyone knows, I turned to the power of the pen and the phone. It felt great. But I failed to appreciate that I was building my castles on sand. I thought Hillary would be there and she'd let them stand. So much of my legacy rested on her success.
And now, Mr. Trump and Congress will undo a major part of my legacy. So many regulations and executive orders will just fly away.
Israel - a lost cause, again
Some see me favoring the Palestinians over Israel. But it's not true. I gave Israel billions in defense and the Iron Dome missile protection system. But when it comes to legal status and boundaries, I felt compelled to engineer the passage of UN Resolution 2334, allowing nations to boycott and sanction Israel for its settlement policy. Israel does not fully understand what is good for it. John Kerry and I just helped the peace process along. If only Israel complied with my plan, the Palestinians would grant Israel lasting peace and perhaps there would be less of a reason for war in the Middle East. Of course, history may prove me wrong - the 1967 boundaries are the red lines that Israel must recognize as the starting point for considering a Palestinian state.
Climate Change is really real
There is only so much I can do to reshape the world. Soon even climate change will out run terrorism and war as the greatest danger to the planet. People make fun of those children stories, like Chicken Little running around, saying that the sky is falling. Well, the sky is falling.
Even if President Donald Trump's pick to run the Environmental Protection Agency has to follow existing regulations, the new version of the EPA will invent a science where CO2 is beneficial to the environment instead of being a danger. How can one rationally say that more CO2 will make the planet greener?!
A final comment
I will end this brief reflection on my legacy. I will ponder my rise to the pinnacle of power and my descent into the abyss. Perhaps, some day I will rise again. Maybe as a Supreme Court Justice, maybe as a future United Nations Secretary-General. There's so much good I can achieve and I've learned much as President of the United States.
