Obama in his own eyes

The farewell address by outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama in Chicago on Tuesday instantly became an inseparable part of his national legacy. This was another attempt by the person occupying the White House to ensure himself a place of honor in the ongoing chain of history, through the amplification of his accomplishments and his depiction of himself as a trailblazer and bringer of vast political, social and economic change. Given this tradition, it should come as no surprise that a substantial part of Obama's retirement speech included enthusiastic praise for his own work. America is a better place today than it was on Jan. 20, 2009, when Obama was first sworn in as president -- at least in his own eyes.

However, despite his familiar eloquence, the emotional tones and the nostalgia, missing from his farewell speech was any note of self-criticism or willingness to accept responsibility for failures and oversights, especially in connection to the fields of diplomacy and defense. After all, through the eight years of Obama's tenure, the American superpower lost its hegemonic status, while at the same time its ability to project credibility and ward off rivals was eroded.

Instead of facing reality, Obama preferred to see the glass as half full. He even heaped on the sugar. However, while exaggerating his contribution to and impact on the history of the nation is understandable and is anchored in basic human tendencies, things were very different in the other part of his speech, in which he veered from the pattern established by his predecessors and went on the attack against his successor, President-elect Donald Trump.

The die was cast on Nov. 8, 2016, when the American people gave a mandate to a new president who holds positions diametrically opposed to those of Obama and his chosen successor, Hillary Clinton. Despite this, Obama continued to wage a desperate final battle against Trump from that stage in Chicago. He did not suffice with an expression of hope for the preservation of his central initiatives (his health care reforms, for example), but came out strongly against the plans and policies being formulated by his successor in almost every field. He did this despite that fact that Trump was elected to advance those very plans.

And so what was supposed to be an official and formative event was turned into a divisive and factional one. Just as the 44th president removed the cloak of senior statesman and joined Clinton's election campaign as a central player, so too did he in his farewell speech not even try to hide his contempt and deep-seated frustration with Trump's stated intention to put America on a new and different path. In light of this, it was a disappointing and even hollow speech, in which all the flowery rhetoric about the need for unity did not match up with his defiant statements against his Republican rival. The sublime words about America's unwavering commitment to human rights remain detached from the White House's actual conduct, which stood idly by and did not lift a finger after Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces completed their murderous chemical offensive against a helpless civilian population.

In conclusion, after this last speech, it seems Obama's departure will be easier to accept than first thought, both domestically and in the international arena.

Abraham Ben-Zvi