Barack Obama has known ecstasy such as few other men have known it.
In 1989, he met the love of his life, Michelle Robinson, an attorney at the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin.
Barack and Michelle Obama
Although she declined his initial requests to date, she finally yielded to his persuasive charm. They were married on October 3, 1992, and have since had two daughters, Malia Ann and Natasha.
On November 2, 2004, Obama joined one of the most exclusive clubs in the world: The United States Senate. With 70% of the vote, he was elected United States Senator from Illinois. He served from 2005 to November 16, 2008, when an even greater event forced him to resign.
That event was his election as the 44th–and first black–President of the United States. On November 4, 2008, he received 52.9% of the votes. He delivered his victory speech before hundreds of thousands of supporters in Chicago’s Grant Park.
President Barack Obama
Then, on November 6, 2012, Obama was re-elected to a second four-year term, becoming the first Democratic President since Franklin D. Roosevelt to twice win the majority of the popular vote.
But now those eight years are rapidly coming to an end. And just as they opened with the euphoria of joy, they are closing with an agony more horrific for the President than anyone can imagine.
The agony of serving as tutor to Donald Trump, the man who will succeed him. Trump has personally reviled him throughout his Presidency–and intends to destroy as much of Obama’s legacy as possible.
For more than a year, Trump has boasted that he would make a far better President than Obama. But now that he’s won the 2016 election, it turns out he has at best a schoolboy’s knowledge of how government works.
Imagine a similar fate befalling another President whom Barack Obama deeply admires.
Imagine, in an alternate history universe, it’s April 14, 1865.
The four years of carnage known as the Civil War are finally over.
Five days ago, on April 9, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Union General of the Armies Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House.
Across the nation, 620,000 Americans lie dead–of wounds or disease. Untold thousands more are coming home as invalids, uncertain how they will care for themselves without limbs or eyes or the ability to walk.
For Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of the United States, it is time to ponder the work of rebuilding a shattered nation. He wants a just peace, not vengeance: “Let ’em up easy,” is the way he puts it.
Abraham Lincoln
But, tonight, he needs to put aside his cares and seek a much-deserved respite at Ford’s Theater for a performance of the comedy, Our American Cousin.
At the theater, unknown to Lincoln, the Southern-sympathizing actor, John Wilkes Booth, awaits. For months he’s planned to kidnap Lincoln and hold him for ransom, to force the increasingly victorious Union armies to withdraw from the South.
But now there’s no point in that.
The Confederacy and slavery are dead. Lincoln has even spoken about giving the accursed blacks the right to vote.
Booth has never picked up a rifle to fight for the South, never faced death on a battlefield. Yet he will prove to the South that he is its greatest champion–by killing Lincoln.
John Wilkes Booth
He has already made his preparations.
At around noon that day–April 14–he had visited Ford’s Theater, where he had a permanent mailbox. There he learned from the brother of John Ford, the owner, that the President and General Grant would be attending the theater to see Our American Cousin.
He knows the theater well–he’s performed there as an actor. And there’s no doubt he’ll have access to it tonight–he’s a celebrity.
That evening, Abraham Lincoln arrives at Ford’s Theater with his wife, Mary. They are accompanied by Union Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancee, Clara Harris. The four settle into the Presidential Box, which overlooks the stage.
Unlike 21st century Presidents, there are no Secret Service bodyguards for Lincoln. Presidents won’t be assigned such protection until 1901, when Theodore Roosevelt takes office.
Tonight, only one man has been assigned to guard Lincoln–a policeman named John Frederick Parker. And during the intermission, Parker decides he needs a drink.
So he slips off to a nearby tavern with Lincoln’s footman and coachman.
Booth arrives at the theater at about 10:25 p.m. Under his coat he’s armed with a knife and an eight-ounce, single-shot Derringer.
Booth walks up the staircase leading to the first of two doors to the President’s box. At the first door he finds Lincoln’s valet, Charles Forbes.
They chat briefly, and then Booth passes through the first door and closes it behind him.
Booth looks through the tiny peep-hole he had carved in the second door (which grants entry to the Presidential Box) earlier that day.
All he has to do is push open the door, aim at the back of Lincoln’s head, and fire. And that’s exactly what he intends to do.
Then–suddenly–he changes his mind.
He has an even more monstrous fate in store for the President.
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OBAMA’S AGONY: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 22, 2016 at 12:01 amA truly great man is ever the same under all circumstances. And if his fortune varies, exalting him at one moment and oppressing him at another, he himself never varies, but always preserves a firm courage, which is so closely interwoven with his character that everyone can readily see that the fickleness of fortune has no power over him.
–Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses
For President Barack Obama, the last two months of his eight-year Presidency will be an agony.
Perhaps only his wife, Michelle, truly knows the torments he will so stoically endure.
For stoicism–enduring pain or hardship without complaint or showing emotions–has long been central to Obama’s character.
In 2011, two years into his Presidency, he faced an accusation never before leveled against an American President: That he was not an American citizen–and thus not entitled to hold the office he held.
His accuser-in-chief: Donald Trump, an egomaniacal, thrice-married “reality-TV” host and real estate mogul who had filed for corporate bankruptcy four times.
At first Obama ignored the accusation, assuming it was so ridiculous no one could believe it. But, promoted by Right-wing Fox News and Republican leaders, millions of Fascistic Americans thought it actually might be true.
So, on April 27, 2011, the President called a press conference–where he released the long-form version of his Hawaii birth certificate.
President Obama’s birth certificate
“We do not have time for this kind of silliness,” said Obama, speaking as a father might to a roomful of spiteful children. “We have better stuff to do. I have got better stuff to do. We have got big problems to solve.
“We are not going to be able to do it if we are distracted, if we spend time vilifying each other, if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts.”
And on May 1, the President announced the solving of one of those “big problems”: Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, had been tracked down and shot dead by elite U.S. Navy SEALS in Pakistan.
To understand Obama’s agony as he ends his term, imagine the following alternate history:
On April 14, 1865, the slavery-sympathizing actor John Wilkes Booth enters Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C.
His mission: Assassinate President Abraham Lincoln.
Armed with a knife and Derringer, he reaches the unguarded Presidential box. But just as he’s about to push open the door to his–and Lincoln’s–destiny, he halts.
He’s just thought of a more monstrous fate for the President.
Silently, he leaves the theater–and the world never learns how close Lincoln came to death at the hands of an assassin.
Instead, Booth waits out the next four years–until the election of 1868, when Lincoln’s second term is up.
Lincoln has chosen Andrew Johnson, his Vice President, to succeed him.
For the outgoing President, it’s more than a matter of politics. A Johnson victory will secure the legacies Lincoln has created during the last eight years:
But Johnson is a lackluster candidate, and, after eight years of war and Reconstruction, Americans are eager for “change.”
Suddenly, an unexpected challenger steps forward: The celebrated Shakespearean actor John Wilkes Booth!
Booth promises that, if elected, he will overturn everything Lincoln has done–most especially the Thirteenth Amendment.
He’ll tear up the surrender treaty that officially ended the Civil War and let the Southern states restore the Confederacy.
His campaign slogan: “Let America Enslave Again.”
He calls the President an ape, a buffoon, a dictator with the blood of countless Americans on his hands.
Newspaper reporters covering Johnson often fall asleep during his speeches. Booth whips up his audiences without even trying.
John Wilkes Booth
On November 4, 1868, John Wilkes Booth becomes the seventeenth President of the United States.
It won’t be until 1933 that Presidents begin taking the Oath of Office on January 20. So Abraham Lincoln will remain President until March 4, 1869.
Meanwhile, John Wilkes Booth has never held public office. He needs to pick a cabinet and learn the basics of what it means to be President.
And only one man is qualified to teach him–the man who now holds that office.
Lincoln knows that, in only a matter of months, everything he has worked for will be ruthlessly overturned. Like a beautiful garment pulled apart, thread by thread, until nothing is left but a pile of rubbish on the floor.
But he is a patriot, and a believer in destiny. Fate–or God–has thrust him into the Presidency. And he will carry out the duties that go with that role, however tormenting they now are, right to the end.
He hopes that Divine Providence will bestow a bright future on his beloved country, however bleak its present now looks.
* * * * *
When Barack Obama entered the White House in 2009, he couldn’t imagine spending his last two months in office tutoring the man who had reviled him throughout his Presidency.
It will be his last gift as President to a nation that has often proved ungrateful for his dedicated service.
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