Woodrow Wilson and Barack Obama - compare and contrast

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Excellent article by James Pinkerton writing at Breitbart:

Woodrow Wilson Obama: Every Hundred Years an Ivy League Democrat’s Presidential Obsession Costs His Party Big
Karl Marx, building on an observation of the German philosopher G.F.W. Hegel, once wrote, “All great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice…The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”

So, in the annals of world-historic personages, we might consider our 28th President, Woodrow Wilson; his tenure in office, replete with epic consequences and controversies, was, ultimately, a tragedy.

And then we can consider our 44th President, Barack Obama; he might be a perfectly earnest fellow, but even so, his time in the Oval Office has been a farce—a fandango of flummoxed expectations. To be sure, it’s been a farce tinged with tragedy inflicted on the innocent, as we saw on Tuesday in San Bernardino, CA. Yet the bloodshed, carnage, and grave risk to national security notwithstanding, yes, Obama’s has been a farcical presidency.

The similarities:

Both men were Ivy League-educated politicians, better noted for soaring oratory than actual accomplishment.

Both men were two-term Democratic presidents whose time in office marked a major shrinkage of their party, such that by the sixth year of their presidencies, the opposition Republicans had gained control of both houses of Congress.

Both men then compounded their difficulties in their seventh year by undertaking difficult diplomatic efforts—undertakings dubbed “dubious,” even “dangerous,” by most Americans. Yes, in both presidencies, their late-term efforts were at first regarded with suspicion by Congress and the American people, and then their efforts blossomed into fleurs de mal of outright unpopularity.

The main difference was Wilson's resolve during World War I

Although he dithered for a time, and although he was not a strong war leader, Wilson undeniably was our commander-in-chief during the US victory in World War One, and he thereby thwarted German military domination over the European continent. So for that achievement alone, Wilson deserves our gratitude.

More:

Yet Wilson was much more than just a president who won a war. His vision of a better post-war world, summed up in his Fourteen Points, presented to Congress during the war, in January 1918, helped burnish his legacy—or, if one prefers, stoked still more controversy. Point One, for example, was a strong rejection of secret alliance-making, seen as one of the underlying causes of the “Great War.” As Wilson put it, he wanted “open covenants of peace, openly arrived at … diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.”

Much more at the site - Wilson tried to get us involved in the New World Order - the League of Nations but failed.

This is a long article but well worth reading - the parallels are spooky - history is repeating itself and these two men represent two of the worst presidents we have ever had.

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This page contains a single entry by DaveH published on December 3, 2015 4:03 PM.

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