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March 28, 2024

On ISIS, trade, clemency and more, Obama not letting up in final stretch

Obama at Clean Energy Summit

Steve Marcus

President Barack Obama delivers the keynote address during the National Clean Energy Summit 8.0 on Monday, Aug. 24, 2015, at Mandalay Bay Convention Center.

As the 44th president of the United States prepares to hand over the Oval Office, retrospectives are rampant. No doubt, his legacy will be about reforming health care and steering the economy through the Great Recession, legalizing same-sex marriage and restarting diplomatic relations with Cuba. On all of these subjects and many others, Barack Obama has been praised and berated. According to the Brookings Institution, George W. Bush is the only American president seen as more polarizing.

Next face on Mount Rushmore

Travel website Expedia polled more than 1,000 American adults from Feb. 26-29, who said the next face they’d like to see on Mount Rushmore is:

1. Franklin D. Roosevelt, 29%

2. John F. Kennedy, 21%

3. Ronald Reagan, 19%

4. Barack Obama, 9%

5. Dwight Eisenhower, 8%

6. Harry S. Truman, 5%

7. Bill Clinton, 4%

8. George H.W. Bush, 3%

9. George W. Bush, 2%

Non-president nominees: Martin Luther King Jr., 11%; Benjamin Franklin, 7%; Albert Einstein, 3%; Jesus Christ, 2%; Donald Trump, 2%

However sure people are that he is the best or worst POTUS ever, Obama’s reputation is molten, as public opinion tends to swing the more time a past president is away from the White House. He has talked about decisions that haunt him, and in a recent Vanity Fair interview with presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, he reflected on the job: “There’s a point where the vanity burns away and you’ve had your fill of your name in the papers, or big adoring crowds, or the exercise of power. And for me that happened fairly quickly. And then you are really focused on: What am I going to get done with this strange privilege that’s been granted to me? How do I make myself worthy of it?”

In his final State of the Union address in January, Obama made it clear he had no intention of spending his last year sitting down. While the record of his two terms in office eventually will fill a library, these are some of the major issues the president prioritized in his final stretch.

Guantánamo Bay

Obama pledged to close the military prison on a base in Cuba during his campaign in 2008, but Congress has blocked him throughout his presidency on the grounds that the suspected terrorists being held are too dangerous to be released or relocated to detention centers in the U.S. In his last State of the Union, he reiterated: "It is expensive, it is unnecessary, and it only serves as a recruitment brochure for our enemies." Restrictions on prisoner transfers have kept him from doing more than reducing Gitmo's population over the years, but in September he succeeded in shutting down one of the facility's maximum-security prisons. Obama's strategy is to whittle down the population so much that it becomes impossible for Congress to justify funding the prison. Only 60 detainees remain, but the issue likely will get kicked to the next president. Hillary Clinton supports Obama's position; Donald Trump opposes it.

The Environment

“No U.S. president has done more to advance the fight against climate change. By a long shot,” wrote Lou Leonard, head of the World Wildlife Fund’s Climate Change Program, in a September op-ed for the Huffington Post. Leonard lauded Obama’s domestic efforts through the Environmental Protection Agency and facilitation of global action, culminating in the historic Paris Agreement in December. Almost 200 nations pledged to adopt its deep environmental reforms, which came into force this week. Obama hasn’t let up at home, either. In February, his final budget request included a proposal to double spending on clean energy research by 2020. When he took office, coal accounted for roughly half the nation's power, and that figure has dropped to 30 percent. But his greenhouse gas-slashing Clean Power Plan for the energy sector is the subject of a lawsuit filed by 24 states and various companies and industry groups. The Supreme Court stayed any resolution until after the election.

Clemency

In 2016 alone, Obama has shortened the sentences of 688 people in federal prison, the most in a single year by any president, and more overall — the eight-year tally is approaching 900 — than the past 11 holders of the office combined. And he has granted 70 pardons, meaning the conviction is erased along with the punishment. Given Obama’s work on reforming sentencing of nonviolent offenders, the numbers are likely to rise as he continues to grant clemency through his final days in office. From the White House webpage on commutations and pardons: “Our nation faces a cycle of poverty, criminality and incarceration that traps too many Americans and weakens too many communities." While the sweeping Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015 is still being batted around in the Senate, it has bipartisan support and stands to be a “landmark” walk-back from mandatory sentencing laws adopted at the height of the War on Drugs.

ISIS

Occupied by the Islamic State since 2014, Mosul is the terrorist group’s last stronghold in Iraq. In October, Iraqi government forces and a U.S.-led coalition launched an offensive to retake the city and confine its occupiers to Syria (where they’re also losing ground). While a tough fight is expected over several years, the offensive has moved forward mostly on schedule and with momentum, according to the Pentagon. Obama has said there’s a “strategic as well as humanitarian interest in us getting this right," including the aftermath. Sectarian conflict could bubble up if ISIS is ejected. But a successful ouster would be a win for Obama’s legacy, as critics have derided his handling of “radical Islam.”

Trans-Pacific Partnership

Seven years of negotiations went into the TPP, signed in February by the U.S., Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Peru, Vietnam and Singapore. The free-trade agreement, considered the biggest in modern history, isn’t supported by either nominee for president, and some advocacy groups fear it will give corporations too much influence over public policy, offer inadequate environmental safeguards and restrictions on Big Tobacco, and drive up drug prices in poor countries. But Obama listed the TPP as one of his top 10 recent accomplishments, calling it the “strongest, most pro-worker, pro-environment trade agreement in our history.” He’s pushing hard for Congress to pass it in the lame-duck session, his economic advisers this week releasing a report on the dire market consequences they foresee if it dies.

Iran Nuclear Deal

The pact made by six world powers and Iran on the future of its nuclear development was reached in July 2015. In exchange for limiting uranium use to civilian purposes and allowing routine inspections, sanctions are being phased out by the U.N. and Western governments including the U.S. Despite Congressional Republicans pulling out all the stops to dismantle the agreement, it survived, and Obama has passionately defended it. While Iran has cut stockpiles of uranium and heavy water and given monitors unprecedented access, it also has violated human-rights requirements and done missile tests. With Iranian President Hassan Rouhani facing re-election in 2017, support could soften in Iraq, though the next U.S. president could try to scrap the deal before that even comes into play.

Syria

Obama has been in power since the 2011 start of the Syrian crisis, a brutal civil war between rebel forces and those loyal to President Bashar al-Assad — including powerful ally Russia. Obama has favored diplomacy over military action, calling for Assad to concede to a transition government and charging Secretary of State John Kerry with brokering ineffectual cease-fires. While U.S. forces have tamped down the Islamic State in eastern Syria (U.S.-backed Syrian forces just announced a plan to take back the city of Raqqa), force has been applied much more lightly in the west, where the war is raging. Weighing stronger military options, Obama has said, “The problem with any Plan B that does not involve a political settlement is that it means more fighting, potentially for years.”

Immigration

Through an executive order, Obama expanded DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and created DAPA (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents) in 2014. Citing the Migration Policy Institute, a Houston Chronicle report said “the action would have shielded 5.04 million people from deportation, about 45 percent of the country’s unauthorized population.” In December 2014, 26 states sued over the order, and a federal judge ruled that a higher court had to decide its fate. The U.S. Supreme Court ended in a deadlock, with no possibility of a tiebreaker as the vacant seat of the late Antonin Scalia hadn’t been filled. In July, the White House asked the court if the case could be reheard once the bench was full, but the request was rejected without comment.

 

Click to enlarge photo

President Barack Obama smiles during his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016.

What will Obama do after he leaves office?

President Obama has said his family will stay in Washington, D.C., when his term ends, at least until his younger daughter, Sasha, finishes high school. The other thing that’s clear from interviews: He plans to step away from politics and public life (as well as take a very long nap). Many things Obama has said indicate he’ll be working on issues that were important to him during his presidency, despite Donald Trump’s suggestion that the former leader of the free world will probably just play golf.

Will he write more books? Having written three (and made more than $15 million on them), Obama is likely to write a fourth. He had a contract in place for another work of nonfiction before he took office, and Random House agreed to put it on hold during his term. (USA Today)

Will he create a presidential library? With support from the General Services Administration, he will follow the tradition of American presidents going back to Franklin D. Roosevelt. He's reportedly trying to raise $1 billion for his post-presidential operations, which would include a foundation "with a worldwide reach" and a cutting-edge library full of digital assets. (The New York Times)

Will he be nominated to the Supreme Court? “I love the law, intellectually. I love nutting out these problems, wrestling with these arguments. I love teaching. I miss the classroom and engaging with students. But I think being a justice is a little bit too monastic for me. Particularly after having spent ... eight years in this bubble, I think I need to get outside a little bit more.” (The New Yorker)

Will he continue working on My Brother’s Keeper? The nonprofit mentoring initiative for young minority men was launched in 2014. In 2015, Obama announced an MBK Alliance to enable him to keep working on the initiative after his presidency. At the launch he said: “I firmly believe that every child deserves the same chances that I had. And that’s why we’re here today — to do what we can, in this year of action, to give more young Americans the support they need to make good choices, and to be resilient, and to overcome obstacles, and achieve their dreams. This is an issue of national importance — it’s as important as any issue that I work on. It’s an issue that goes to the very heart of why I ran for president — because if America stands for anything, it stands for the idea of opportunity for everybody; the notion that no matter who you are, or where you came from, or the circumstances into which you are born, if you work hard, if you take responsibility, then you can make it in this country.” (The White House)

Will he go back to community organizing? “I’ll go back to doing the kinds of work that I was doing before, just trying to find ways to help people. Help young people get educations, and help people get jobs, and try to bring businesses into neighborhoods that don’t have enough businesses. That’s the kind of work that I really love to do.” (USA Today)

• • •

President Obama’s Approval Ratings

President Obama’s Approval Ratings

Most recent weekly average: 54% (Oct. 24-30, 2016)

Term average: 48% (Jan. 20, 2009-present)

High point, weekly average: 67% (Jan. 21-25, 2009)

Low point, weekly average: 40% (12 times, most recently Nov. 3-9, 2014)

High point, three-day average: 69% (Jan. 22-24, 2009)

Low point, three-day average: 38% (8 times, most recently Sept. 2-5, 2014)

Obama’s Approval Ratings by Party

Republican low: 6% (three times, most recently Dec. 8-14, 2014)

Republican high: 41% (Jan. 21-25, 2009)

Democrat low: 72% (Oct. 17-23, 2011)

Democrat high: 94% (Oct. 17-23, 2016)

Independent low: 31% (two times, most recently March 10-16, 2014)

Independent high: 64 % (April 20-26, 2009)

“He’s on track to finish his final term with a majority of Americans approving of the job he is doing. It’s only a slight majority, but that still looks pretty good compared with the approval ratings of other presidents since the end of World War II.” –FiveThirtyEight

Historical Comparisons

Average for U.S. presidents: 53% (1938-present)

Average for 32nd quarter: 52% (various)

Other presidents in fourth October after re-election:

Dwight Eisenhower: 59% (1960)

Ronald Reagan: 57% (1988)

Bill Clinton: 63% (2000)

George W. Bush: 29% (2008)

Source: Gallup

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