He's Going, Going, Gone! (1/20/17)

"So this is how it ends - in a whimper wrapped in self-pity and recriminations. With President Obama on the defensive at his final press conference and Hillary Clinton’s last campaign event resembling a wake, the Democratic Party is limping off the stage and into the political winter.  It was supposed to sit atop the national power pyramid for decades, a new paradigm of liberals, progressives, the young, the old, the unions and blacks, Latinos, Muslims and Asians.  The torch would be passed from Obama to Clinton, a liberal Supreme Court would vastly expand executive power and the regulatory state would enforce climate-change orthodoxy on all industry and elitist dictates on every American. Globalism would be the new patriotism.  But a funny thing happened on the way to one-party dominance: The people who work for a living said no, hell no. Their revolt brings Donald Trump to the White House amid hopes of a revival of the economy and of the American spirit.  Thoroughly beaten, the Dems are at their lowest point in nearly a century. From the White House to Congress to statehouses, they are on the outside looking in." – Michael Goodwin

“Obama isn't just leaving political life, he is also leaving the Democratic Party a smoldering ruin. He took office on a wave that turned America blue....The last four elections point toward a massive miscalculation by Obama. He confused his own electoral strength as a candidate with popular support for his ideas. In the end, his transformative policies proved so unpopular that far too many other Democrats could not survive them...his fellow Democrats have been cut down in huge swaths whenever their leader was not on the ballot. Obama led House Democrats like sheep to the slaughter in 2010 and 2014. In the Senate, Democrats who voted for Obamacare were wiped out as well.  The stunning 2016 result puts an exclamation point on all this.” - The Washington Examiner

"For all the gooey talk about President Barack Obama's legacy, it can probably best be described in four blunt words:  Disappointment.  And Donald Trump...Trump.  Donald Trump is Obama's true legacy." - John Kass

“And while it remains to be seen whether or not a President Trump will preside over a resurgent United States of America, both economically and militarily, there is one thing for certain.  Few, except the uneducated and ill-informed among Barack Obama’s die hard supporters, will get misty-eyed watching him walk out of the White House for the last time.  I suspect most Americans will more likely be thinking, ‘don’t let the door hit you on the way out.’” – D.W. Wilber