Assessing President Obama’s legacy, the panelists on today’s Morning Joe seemed in competition to outdo each other with misplaced praise.
Historian David Maraniss led off, calling Obama “the Jackie Robinson of American electoral politics.”
Next up was Joe Scarborough, who upped the ante by placing Obama in the same category as Martin Luther King, Jr.
Batting clean up, Walter Isaacson hit one out of the hyperbole park, claiming that “Obama will go down as one of the great presidents we have ever had.”
I’ll leave it to our Legal Insurrection readers to itemize all the ways that President Obama was anything but a great president. National Review does a good job here of cataloging his myriad failures.
But for sheer outrageousness, I’d single out Scarborough’s placing of Obama in the same class as MLK. When it came to his personal pastor, instead of someone who preached judging people not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character, Barack Obama chose the odious, hateful Jeremiah Wright. It was only when Wright became an obstacle to Obama’s presidential ambitions that Obama discarded him.
Note: As you’ll see in the screengrab, the chyron displayed during part of the segment was much more candid: “President Obama’s legacy shaky as he departs.”
JOE SCARBOROUGH: What is Barack Obama’s long-term legacy?DAVID MARANISS: You know, I think that, to some extent, we’ve all looked at — not see the forest for the trees. And I still believe deeply that the forest is that he was a pioneer, that he was the Jackie Robinson of American electoral politics. Jackie Robinson left, retired 60 years ago. The first black baseball player in the Major Leagues, with talent and dignity. It wasn’t just that he was the first, is that he had the other two things as well. And I think that 50 years from now, that’s how we will see Barack Obama. A lot of the disputes will fade away.JOE: I was talking earlier this week on MLK Day and talked about how I suspect that 50 years from now you would almost see MLK and Barack Obama joined together as two leaders, two young men who, together, helped fulfill the promise of Thomas Jefferson. I think it is two parts of the same story and the realization of what was promised in 1776.. . .WALTER ISAACSON: I think Obama will go down as one of the great presidents we have ever had.
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