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| The Russian Reset |
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Obama and the "Russians Did It"
Conjecture
E. Ablorh-Odjidja
January 23, 2017
The first
Black president, Barrack Obama, left office on January 20, 2017,
with a nice time-honored ceremony.
Except, the occasion
was marred by protests of some odd sort, that left the
premonition that all might not go down well with Obama’s legacy
after the handover.
Visible in the lead of the protest, to the handing
over from the Obama administration to the incoming new
president, Donald J. Trump, was a protest led by Rep. John
Lewis, a civil rights icon and a Democrat member of the House of
Congress. And you
ask why?
The rationale Rep. Lewis gave for his protest
was that Russia had helped elect Trump in 2016, therefore “his
presidency was illegitimate.”
A matter worth asking now
is how 'The Russians did it."
This question may be
deleterious to Obama’s legacy because the primary assertion,
that “the Russians did it,” defies logic.
And for this very
reason, may also be dangerous to the nation’s own heritage to an
extent that may not seem apparent now.
Key in the
consideration of all this will not be Obama’s policies.
Whether these policies were successful or not will be a
different matter.
Obama's legacy will
rather be about how the Russians came to elect the first
president in America under the administration of the first
American Black president.
Sadly, this is the
belief to which Rep. Lewis, the Civil Rights icon, has lent his
imprimatur. Russia,
for the first time, has had a substantial influence over the
American electoral system in 2016, when Trump was elected.
What a blow to the civil rights story.
But it is our very own Congressman Lewis, a Civil Rights
icon, that is helping to put this portentous overhang on our
first Black administration!
Already, the charge has had
some negative impact. It has ruined what ought to have been a
peaceful transition from black Obama to white Trump, a first in presidential
transitions.
The bad feelings generated may spread deeper
to worsen racial tension in America.
How soon the next Black president is elected may be the
key.
But for now,
Democrats and liberals don't care about the brewing legacy mess
after Obama. Congressman Lewis doesn't either. They are all out
to get Trump without a whiff of concern.
And this one Russian story now frames the entire Obama's
presidency.
With Obama, Democrats found the perfect
vehicle for liberal policies, as they have always found useful
with past Black leaders and prominent politicians.
Once
these leaders were used up, (Harold Lee Washington, Mayor,
Chicago 1983; David Norman Dinkins, New York City, 1990 come to
mind) they moved on to the next useful black leader.
Congressman Lewis should be worried.
Promises made to Black America are never fulfilled, even
after these Black leaders are used up.
Obama’s story would not be different.
It is already clear
that Obama presidency has been used for reasons other than our
own.
Earlier in 2009, I had sensed trouble coming for
Obama, at the very moment he accepted the Nobel Peace Award; so
early in his presidency, in an administration that was yet to
put a marker on the board of history.
But for the Nobel
Peace prize administrators, Obama’s ascendancy was good enough;
time to bring him in as an ally for causes they supported.
Noble as the
presentation was projected to be, it also helped to expose a
flaw in Obama's character; his hubris.
This caused him to see the award as one given for accomplishment,
when it was rather done for expectation.
The official reason
for Peace Award states, " to the person who shall have done the
most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the
abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding
and promotion of peace congresses."
Obama was yet to meet
the requirements, yet he got the prize.
He accepted
the award outright and didn’t see it as some kind of a bait.
He had
the choice to punt the award to the men of the Civil Rights
movement who did more, men who had the moral underpinnings and
on whose shoulders he stood.
But he didn’t.
A bait the prize
was. It focused on
what Obama was in the present; a powerful world leader, the
Commander in Chief of the world's only superpower army, who could
make things happen in the direction and ways of the Nobel Peace
Prize.
Viewed from the
general side, the award was utilitarian.
But from the racial angle, it could be seen as patronage. In the end,
it helped shape parts of Obama policy initiatives and made them
superficially more pacific and global.
In a metaphysical
sense, it’s made Obama a world citizen, equally in love with all
countries, including Russia.
Such was Obama’s
world, until the 2016 elections and the defeat of Hillary.
And shortly before he left office, he became more aggressive
toward the Russians, predicating his action on the improbable
premise of Russian Collusion with Trump.
The Russians, in
the person of the new US president, have now villainously
inserted themselves into the Oval office and ready to cause
damage to American interest.
Obama helped push the
preposterous assertion to partisan heights, without paying much
attention to the damage it might cause his own legacy, American
future or relationship with Russia down the line.
So
after years of conflicts with America, Russia finally had the
opportunity to insert herself into American politics in 2016 and
be victorious. This all happened under Obama,
the first Black president and Nobel Peace laureate's watch.
Unfortunately, the
charge of Russia collusion has landed Obama where Bush was in
2003, when the latter declared “Mission Accomplished.”
In reality, the Russia Collusion charge, uttered after Hillary's
loss to Trump in 2016, was a lie.
It was the hungry wish of Democrats to get back in power
and to damage Trump. But
unfortunately, it will not stop at Trump.
Damage to peaceful
Russia/America relations and Obama’s legacy are the next stops.
Historically, Americans were the winners when it came to
relationship tussles with the Russians.
Nixon had a
“Detente” with the Russians, the magnitude of which is still
felt in the history books today. Kennedy defeated the Russians
in a face-off over Cuba.
Reagan's “Gorbachev, tear down
this wall” moment in 1987 still rings nostalgic in the ears of
Americans until now.
For Obama, it would
be the Russian Collusion charge.
Even so, relationship
with Russia was different at the start. Obama and Hillary
sought a better moment with the Russians, soon after George W.
Bush.
That effort brought Hillary and her mock button,
with “reset” on it, to Russia.
The meaning intended with the inscription was wrong.
It read “overcharge,” and was humorously corrected to the
exact word in the Russian language for the Hillary team by the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergai Lavrov.
That mock "reset" was
an omen. American/Russian relationship has gone “overcharge” for
the worse, with no relief in sight.
Sadly, Obama is also an ardent enabler. Close to
him is Congressman Lewis and his fervid protest.
At the
inauguration, sixty-eight House Democrats, with Rep Lewis in the
lead, protested that Trump was an” illegal president.
Again, John Lewis, a Civil Rights icon, could have done better.
His participation in the protest helped strain further
the peace in the transition between Obama and Trump.
Obama
becoming the president was probably the greatest achievement of
the Civil Rights movement.
Rep. Lewis should have been sensitive and more guarded to
the possibility of a damage to the overall heritage of this
great Black cause.
But Lewis insisted he
was boycotting the inauguration on principle and that it was his
first boycott. That “first” excuse turned
out to be a lie. He had boycotted George Bush's inaugural in
2001.
In between George Bush and Trump, Lewis had
disparaged former Republican presidential candidates, John
McCain and Milt Romney by equating each to George Wallace of
Alabama, the prototypical segregationist.
With this trend
of activism, Lewis had already established for himself a
tradition of boycotting only the inauguration of Republican
presidencies and calling their prospective candidates racists.
Clearly with this
level of activism, John Lewis has been more of a Democrat
partisan (for some 30 years) than the Black civil rights warrior
he once was.
Trump is
“illegitimate” may be a good strategy for the Democrat’s cause,
but the charge may not necessarily be a good protection for
Black interest.
Many a racist's
conscience was salved by the election of the first Black as
president. But not
for long. That same racist sentiment will gloat as the
"Russian Collusion" becomes unraveled; more so because it does
damage to Obama's legacy.
However, the manner with
which this false "Russian Collusion" charge is being pursued,
with support by individuals like Obama himself and Lewis, has
already defiled the historic prestige gained with Obama's
election.
E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher
www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, January 23, 201.
Permission
to publish: Please feel free to publish or reproduce, with
credits, unedited. If posted at a website, email a copy of the
web page to publisher@ghanadot.com. Or don't publish at all.
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