Once again, there is the sorry spectacle of President Obama committing below-the-waterline injury to his own reputation, giving future biographers lots of fodder for head-shaking, as well as sticking it to the Democratic Party, the country, the planet.
This is a tale of two Obamas.
One is the president who has meekly accepted the GOP’s mugging of our judicial system, congressional precedent and constitutional mandate, its refusal to schedule hearings for his Supreme Court nominee. He seems to have just given up. You can almost hear Obama saying, “Oh, well, I’m tired, and I’m almost out the door, anyway.”
The other Obama is newly engaged, Johnny-on-the-spot, ready to expend every last bit of political capital to something passed:
That is the Obama who is insisting that the democracy-targeting Trans-Pacific Partnership be voted on in the upcoming lame-duck Congressional session. TPP will override U.S. national sovereignty and further cripple that very same judicial system that the GOP has put in its rifle sights.
Obama’s obstinacy has, of course sparked outage among the progressive groups and constituencies that are not very happy about Hillary, but must show up in November in order for Hillary to get elected. It even contradicts Hillary’s own stated “evolutionary’ position on the subject. It contradicts Trump’s own faux-populist opposition to the treaty. It plays right into Trump’s hand.
The word “legacy” is one of those terms, concepts, adjectives that have been rendered largely meaningless by our “mainstream” “news” media. They tell us over and over again that Obama wants TPP passed to ensure his legacy.
Whether or not TPP passes Congress, certainly this will cement Obama’s legacy as a corporate toady who was always avid to give Jamie and all the other Jamies whatever they want at all and any cost.