LA Times (January 14)
“Farewell to Barack Obama: A humane, intelligent and (mostly) effective leader…. The 44th president was a conscientious and intelligent leader who espoused humane values, inspired millions of Americans and successfully fulfilled some of his most significant promises.”
Tags: Conscientious, Effective, Farewell, Humane, Inspired, Intelligent, Leader, Obama, Successful, Values
CNN (December 23)
“President-elect Donald Trump long ago earned a reputation for being unpredictable in his statements, but he outdid himself on Thursday. In the span of just a few hours, Trump shook international relations by undercutting the Obama administration over a UN resolution on Israeli settlements, indicated he would ramp up nuclear competition with Russia and then jolted a major defense contractor — and its shareholders — by suggesting he would ask Boeing to replace a fighter jet being made by Lockheed Martin.”
Tags: Boeing, Defense, Israel, Lockheed Martin, Nuclear, Obama, Russia, Shareholders, Trump, UN resolution, Unpredictable
Wall Street Journal (December 18)
“China is testing U.S. resolve to maintain freedom of navigation in international waters that Beijing illegally claims as its own” with its recent theft of a U.S. underwater drone. “Whether China today is responding to Mr. Trump or offering a final insult to President Obama is beside the point because the drone theft is part of a larger Chinese pattern. China’s behavior shows its intention to intimidate its neighbors and establish hegemony in East Asia.”
Tags: China, Drone, East Asia, Freedom of navigation, Hegemony, Intimidate, Obama, Theft, Trump, U.S.
LA Times (November 20)
“Obama’s final foreign trip was his last chance to warn the world about Trump, and to warn Trump about the world.”
Tags: Foreign trip, Last chance, Obama, Trump, Warn, World
LA Times (October 6)
“President Obama could be right in saying history may judge the ratification of the Paris Agreement as ‘a turning point for our planet.’ But if meaningful reductions in carbon emissions don’t follow, then history will judge this as the moment when the world acknowledged it had a problem, yet failed to fix it. The longer the world—and governments—dillydally, the more likely future generations will regard us as fools.”
New York Times (September 7)
President “Obama has made headway in reassuring Asian nations that the United States intends to remain a stabilizing presence in the region,” but China’s aggressive moves in the South China Sea will increasingly dominate the future of the region and will present a complicated challenge for Mr. Obama’s successor to manage.”
Tags: Aggression, Asia, China, Headway, Obama, South China Sea, Stabilizing presence, Successor, U.S.
New York Times (August 12)
“When Mr. Trump fans racist rage against the president, suggests that gun owners take up arms against Mrs. Clinton, or speaks darkly of a ‘rigged’ election, he is not trying to woo Republican skeptics, independents or undecided voters. He is appealing to the mob.”
Tags: Clinton, Election, Gun owners, Independents, Mob, Obama, Racist, Rage, Republicans, Rigged, Skeptics, Trump, Voters
USA Today (May 25)
President Obama is right to visit Hiroshima and also not to apologize. “The bombings, as horrific as they were, saved the lives of millions of civilians and soldiers who surely would have died had the United States gone ahead with an invasion of Japan. Many of those lives were Japanese.” Instead Obama “should present an America that, while not apologetic, is empathetic. There is something appealing about the world’s only true superpower…showing a bit of humanity.”
Tags: Bombings, Civilians, Empathetic, Hiroshima, Horrific, Humanity, Invasion, Japan, Obama, Soldiers, Superpower, U.S.
Wall Street Journal (May 12)
“There’s zero reason to apologize for the atomic bombing, which forestalled invasion and saved lives…. Mr. Obama, as well as his Japanese hosts, should appreciate that Truman authorized the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, both major military-industrial targets, to help win the gruesome Pacific War as quickly as possible and with the loss of the fewest American lives—and, as it turned out, the loss of the fewest Japanese lives.”
Tags: Apologize, Atomic bombing, Bombing, Gruesome, Hiroshima, Invasion, Japan, Lives, Nagasaki, Obama, Pacific War, Truman, U.S.
New York Times (May 11)
“With his decision to speak beneath that famous dome, Mr. Obama is taking a step 11 of his predecessors avoided. Merely by showing up in Hiroshima, he will have no choice but to navigate a minefield of conflicting memory, in Japan and in the United States.”
