President Obama’s one greatest accomplishment

By Charles Mwewa

President Barack Obama

Whether you a US Republican or an anti-Obama pundit you cannot afford but to know and acknowledge all the accomplishments of President Barack Obama. The Washington Monthly lists about 50 of those accomplishments ranging from passing the Health Care reforms, to passing the Stimulus, to passing the Wall Street reforms, to ending wars, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan, to eliminating Osama bin Laden, to turning around the US economy, including the US auto industry, to improving America’s image abroad, to improving relations with Cuba, to mention but a limited few. Scholars on American politics know that all previous presidents before him failed to achieve most of what President Obama has achieved. That alone, without prejudice, might set President Obama, in an objective future, as one of, if not, the greatest president in US history.

President Obama has silenced every critic who fathomed that he would not manage a country, let alone a superpower like the US. He has done so not just immaculately, but with flying colours. He is perhaps the most intelligent, eloquent speaker and avid statesman of the recent century. His acumen can only be compared to the gods of Mount Olympus, his savvy-ness is eloquent even to genius-masterminds, and his poise is elegantly supreme to any of the recently democratically elected presidents in American history.

There was a talk of dysfunctional Black families before he was elected president. We were all there, should we forget now? Some banked on the fact that Blacks could not manage a family – Obama has passed the test with amiable daisies. His First Lady is a model factory, and his two daughters will leave White House incident free. President Obama has succeeded as dependable and loving father to his children, and as a loving and responsible husband to his wife.

The above, not withstanding, it will be a disservice to the future to bank on these as President Obama’s greatest successes. For one, there are other presidents in the past, like Franklin D. Roosevelt, the only president to serve more than two terms in the US, who were just as brilliant. For another, our brains are not getting any smaller; there will come a more savvy, more brilliant and even a better leader than President Obama in the future.

President Obama’s greatest accomplishment of all time, and that will never ever be erased, is that he is the first Black president of the United States of America! This designation is innocuous if someone just arrived from another planet, someone who does not know the history of the US – a history imbued in slavery, discrimination, segregation and Black apathy.

In 2008 when President Obama ran against Hilary Clinton in the primaries, not many people thought he would win. We were all shocked – and I think as you read this you are in agreement. Obama defeated the establishment – the first Black man to win a US democratic primary in American history. When he was pitted against John McCain, the Arizona Senator thought he had it all under wraps, but when the results were announced, Obama had emerged winner, achieving what most reasonable analysts would agree was unfathomable in this century. The Whites, the Hispanics and the Blacks all had given a Black man the keys to the White House, amazing! By parity of argument only, if Obama had stayed only one year in power, or let alone one term only, he would have still entered the annals of history as the first Black person to have won the US primaries and presidential elections. But he did even the impossible – he won again – for the second term!

In recent media reportages of President Obama’s legacy there has been a diminishing of this stride. President Obama cannot be compared to other US White presidents, because apart from raising money and communicating their political platforms, they had no other insurmountable huddles to jump. President was always Black and race was the number one factor against him, at every corner. The US White had a history of not only rejecting Black people, but of lynching them as well. To have one Black man be accepted and then going on to be president, is a feat unprecedented in the history of the civilized world. America is to be applauded for this – and this new American began by President Obama is an American that has solidified American global stature.

President Obama is in a class of his own – and the ranting by other Blacks that he has done nothing for the Black people of the US is unjustified, irrelevant and without basis. First, President Obama is the president of the entire US – of the Blacks and the Whites equally. Throughout his presidency, he has ruled as president of everyone. If President Obama did otherwise, such as making the Blacks a priority, wouldn’t he be perpetuating the same unpalatable legacy of the previous White presidents who did prioritize for their own White folks? No, President Obama did the most brilliant and wise thing, he put everyone at the same level and he led as president of the US and not of the Black people of the US. What President Obama has demonstrated is that love, and not hate, is the real deal for, not only the US, but for the world as a whole. President Obama has used what divided the world, namely race, and used it as a conduit to a more tolerable and racially-neutral America!

Last, President Obama is a democratic president – and by the Rule of Law – he must rule by the law and not above it. Therefore, even if he had a priority to improve the Black people’s conditions (conditions that had been ravaged by a 200-plus years of injustice and bigotry), there was only that much he could do in eight years. It is now incumbent upon the next wave of Black Americans to continue where President Obama will leave. President Obama has shown them that it is possible – Oh Yes They Can!

Long live President Barack Obama, you have shown that both Black and White can hang around together just fine and that both are just as excellent!