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A10| Wednesday, January 11, 2017 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

The Obama Legacy

P

resident Obama once said that as Presi-
dent he aspired to be the progressive
Ronald Reagan, and as he prepares to
leave office he has succeeded
in fundamental if ironic ways.
While Reagan left behind a
calmer, more optimistic coun-
try, Mr. Obama leaves a more
divided and rancorous one.
While the Gipper helped elect
a successor to extend his legacy, Mr. Obama will
be succeeded by a man who campaigned to re-
pudiate the President’s agenda. Barack Obama
has been a historic President but perhaps not
a consequential one.
iii
Mr. Obama was always going to be a historic
President by dint of his election as the first Af-
rican-American to hold the office. His victory
affirmed the American ideal that anyone can
aspire and win political power. This affirmation
was all the better because Mr. Obama won in
large part thanks to his cool temperament amid
the financial crisis and his considerable per-
sonal talents.
Yet his Presidency has been a disappoint-
ment at home and abroad, a fact ironically un-
derscored by Mr. Obama’s relentless insistence
that he has been a success. In his many farewell
interviews, he has laid out what he regards as
his main achievements: reviving the economy
after the Great Recession, a giant step toward
national health care, new domestic regulations
and a global pact to combat climate change,
the Iran nuclear deal, and a world where Amer-
ica is merely one nation among many others
in settling global disputes rather than promot-
ing its democratic values.
Even on their own terms those achievements
look evanescent. Congress has teed up Obama-
Care for repeal, and Donald Trump will erase
the climate rules. The global climate pact is
built on promises without enforcement, and Mr.
Trump ran against and won in part on the slow
economic recovery. Authoritarians are on the
march around the world as they haven’t been
since the 1970s, and perhaps the 1930s.
iii
These results flow both from the progressive
agenda he pursued and the way he tried to im-
plement it. He took power in 2009 with historic
Democratic majorities, and he made the mis-
take of using them to fulfill 40 years of unmet
progressive dreams.
From his first days he let Democratic
Speaker Nancy Pelosi write the stimulus and
ObamaCare, to the exclusion of Republicans. “I
won,” he famously replied when Eric Cantor
asked him to consider Republican economic
ideas. The result is that his legislative achieve-
ments were built on partisan votes that now
make them vulnerable to partisan repeal.
Mr. Obama rejected bipartisanship even af-
ter he lost Congress—the House in 2010 and
Senate in 2014. He walked away from a budget
deal with John Boehner in 2011 at the last min-
ute because he wanted more tax increases. In
his second term he all but disdained Congress,
preferring to rule by regulation.
This was a gamble that he could elect a
Democratic successor to protect his executive
orders, but his immigration and other rules
can be erased by Mr. Trump or Congress. By
rejecting the hard work of building political
consensus, Mr. Obama built much of his legacy
on sand.
iii
Mr. Obama’s progressive agenda failed most
acutely on its core promise of economic “fair-

ness.” The President made income redistribu-

tion to address inequality his top policy prior-

ity, above economic growth. The result has

been the slowest expansion

since World War II and even

more inequality.

Higher taxes and wave af-

ter wave of new regulation

dampened investment, while

expanded entitlements and

transfer payments lured more Americans out

of the workforce. After the 2009 spending bill

failed to spur durable growth, the White House

relied almost entirely on the Federal Reserve

to prevent another recession. The Fed was able

to raise asset prices, which has helped the rela-

tively affluent who own assets, but it couldn’t

ignite the broad-based expansion and new busi-

ness creation to lift average incomes.

The Reagan and Bill Clinton expansions left

the public in an optimistic mood. Illegal immi-

gration and trade deficits were larger than dur-

ing the Obama years, but Americans worried

less about both because they could see the tide

rising for everyone. The slow-growth Obama

years created the dry political tinder for Mr.

Trump’s campaign against immigration and

foreign trade.

iii

The story is in many ways even worse on for-

eign policy. When Reagan left office the Soviet

Union was in retreat and the Cold War nearing

its end. As Mr. Obama leaves office, the gains

of the post-Cold War era are being lost as world

disorder spreads.

This too flows from Mr. Obama’s progressive

worldview. He fulfilled his 2008 campaign

promise to reduce America’s global involve-

ment, especially in the Middle East, but his

willy-nilly retreat has led to more chaos. He de-

posed a dictator in Libya but walked away from

the aftermath. His decision to leave Iraq let him

claim the “tide of war is receding” as he ran for

re-election in 2012, but it allowed Islamic State

to gestate there and in Syria as he let its civil

war burn out of control.

The President’s calls for a world without nu-

clear weapons have been met by the accelera-

tion of nuclear programs in North Korea and

Pakistan. A “reset” with Moscow did nothing to

alter Vladimir Putin’s revanchism in Ukraine and

beyond. Reductions in U.S. military spending

have emboldened China to press for regional

dominance in East and Southeast Asia.

Whether his deal with Iran prevents that

country from becoming a nuclear power won’t

be known for several years, but it has already

helped Iran fund its terrorist proxies in Syria,

Lebanon and Yemen. His outreach to Cuba may

be historic but so far it has yielded no benefits

for the Cuban people.

iii

Perhaps the most decisive verdict on the

Obama era is the sour public mood. While Amer-

icans like and respect the President personally,

which explains his approval rating, on Election

Day they said by nearly 2 to 1 that the country

is on the wrong track. Even race relations, which

should have improved under Mr. Obama’s lead-

ership and example, seem to have become worse.

His polarizing Presidency has now yielded an

equally polarizing successor.

The lesson is not that Mr. Obama lacked

good intentions or political gifts. Few Presi-

dents have entered office with so much good-

will. The lesson is that progressive policies

won’t work when they abjure the realities of

economic incentives athome and the necessity

of American leadership abroad.

A Presidency of great

promise ends in rancor

and disappointment.

Firing Richard Cordray

D

onald Trump has experience firing sub-
ordinates, sometimes even without
television cameras around, and we’re
nominating his next candi-
date: Richard Cordray, direc-
tor of the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau (CFPB),
whose lawless and unprofes-
sional agency deserves a dose
of political accountability.
For several weeks the press has pondered
whether Mr. Trump will or even can dismiss
Mr. Cordray. The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act said
the President can only remove a director for
“inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance
in office”—in other words, for cause. But a
panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals
ruled in October that the bureau is “unconsti-
tutionally structured” because the director re-
ports to no one and cannot be fired at will.
The Obama Administration has appealed to
the full D.C. Circuit, and under that court’s
rules the panel decision will be vacated if the
full court takes the case.
Meantime, Mr. Trump should fire Mr.
Cordray for cause, and the President-elect has
a menu of reasons. Take a CFPB auto-loan
campaign, which involved guessing the race
of a borrower by his last name, and then suing
banks that seemed to offer better deals to
people the government assumed are white. A
House Financial Services Committee report
detailed how Mr. Cordray and senior officers
knew their statistical method was “prone to
significant error” but hid that reality from
the public.
Mr. Cordray’s bureau routinely fails to show
the reasoning behind its rules. In December the
Cause of Action Institute filed a lawsuit against
CFPB for refusing to produce more than 1,
pages of documents on how the agency came
up with a regulation on arbitration. Such disclo-
sures are required by the Freedom of Informa-

tion Act. The bureau also slapped a mortgage

company with an enforcement action without

notifying the business that it had reinterpreted

existing regulations. These are

not ideological gripes but ba-

sic failures of professionalism

that would be grounds for

shaking up leadership in pri-

vate business.

An investigation of CFPB

employment practices by the Government Ac-

countability Office found that a quarter of black,

Asian and female respondents reported that

they had been discriminated against. About 10%

claimed to have personally observed retaliation

against another employee. The bureau neglected

to fulfill seven Inspector General recommenda-

tions in this area. Mr. Cordray also stood by

while a CFPB office renovation notched more

than $100 million in cost overruns.

Mr. Cordray, whose five-year term runs until

2018, has said he has no plans to step down

merely because voters chose a new President.

But his record offers ample cause, and there is

also a strong legal case that a President Trump

would have power under the Vacancies Reform

Act to name a temporary director until his nom-

inee can be confirmed.

The Trump transition has said nothing about

Mr. Cordray’s future, and here’s the likely rea-

son: The bureau purports to protect consumers,

which is politically popular. Senator Elizabeth

Warren will rage against any changes at the bu-

reau she created, as Democrats did when Re-

publicans in Congress tried to turn CFPB into

a traditional bipartisan agency like the Securi-

ties and Exchange Commission.

We’d rather see the bureau moved under the

Treasury if it can’t be abolished. But the first

step is to replace Mr. Cordray, who has done an

impressive job in one sense: He is legally eligi-

ble to be fired from a position that progressives

designed to be politically unaccountable.

Trump will have ample

cause to fire the rogue

financial regulator.

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

OPINION

On Palestinian Statehood

Diplomats from some

70 countries will as-

semble in Paris on

Sunday for another

Middle East confer-

ence, intended to pre-

serve the two-state so-

lution for Israelis and

Palestinians. The tim-

ing is not accidental:

With five days to go in

the Obama administra-

tion, there are whispers that the con-

ference may lead to another United Na-

tions Security Council resolution, this

time setting out parameters for an

eventual Palestinian state.

The question is: For what?

Climate change aside, the cause of

Palestinian statehood is the central ob-

session of contemporary global poli-

tics. It’s also its least examined as-

sumption.

Would a Palestinian state serve the

cause of Middle East peace? This used

to be conventional wisdom, on the

theory that a Palestinian state would

lead to peace between Israel and its

Arab neighbors, easing the military

burdens on the former and encourag-

ing the latter to address their internal

discontents.

Today the proposition is ridiculous.

No deal between Jerusalem and Ramal-

lah is going to lift the sights of those

now fighting in Syria, Iraq or Yemen.

Nor will a deal reconcile Tehran and its

terrorist proxies in Lebanon and Gaza

to the existence of a Jewish state. As

for the rest of the neighborhood, Israel

has diplomatic relations with Turkey,

Jordan and Egypt, and has reached

pragmatic accommodations with Saudi

Arabia and other Gulf states.

What about the interests of Pales-

tinians? Aren’t they entitled to a state?

Maybe. But are they more entitled

to one than the Assamese, Basques, Ba-

loch, Corsicans, Druze, Flemish, Kash-

miris, Kurds, Moros, Native Hawaiians,

Northern Cypriots, Rohingya, Tibetans,

Uyghurs or West Papuans—all of whom

have distinct national identities, legiti-

mate historical grievances and plausi-

ble claims to statehood?

If so, what gives Palestinians the

preferential claim? Have they waited

longer than the Kurds? No: Kurdish na-

tional claims stretch for centuries, not

decades. Have they experienced greater

violations to their culture than Tibet-

ans? No: Beijing has conducted a sys-

tematic policy of repression for 67

years, whereas Palestinians are nothing

if not vocal in mosques, universities

and the media. Have they been perse-

cuted more harshly than the Rohingya?

Not even close.

Comparisons aside, would a Pales-

tinian state be good for Palestinian

people?

That’s a more subjective judgment.

But a telling figure came in a June

2015 poll conducted by the Palestinian

Center for Public Opinion, which found

that a majority of Arab residents in

East Jerusalem would rather live as

citizens with equal rights in Israel than

in a Palestinian state. No doubt part of

this owes to a desire to be connected

to Israel’s thriving economy.

But it’s also a function of politics.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas

just entered the 13th year of his four-

year term. Fatah rules the West Bank

through corruption; Hamas rules Gaza

through fear. Humanitarian aid is rou-

tinely diverted for terrorist purposes:

One terror tunnel stretching from Gaza

to Israel consumed an estimated 800

tons of concrete and cost $10 million

to build. Every three years or so,

Hamas starts firing missiles at Israel,

and hundreds of Palestinian civilians

get killed in the crossfire. How does

any of this augur well for what a future

Palestinian state might bring?

But isn’t a Palestinian state a ne-

cessity for Israel? Can it maintain its

Jewish and democratic character

without separating itself from the mil-

lions of Palestinians living west of the

Jordan River?

In theory, Israel would be well-

served living alongside a sovereign Pal-

estinian state that lived in peace with

its neighbors, improved the welfare

and respected the rights of its people,

rejected extremism and maintained a

monopoly on the use of force. In

theory, Palestine could be the next

Costa Rica: small but beautiful.

But Israelis live in a world where

mistakes are mortal, not in theory. In

2000 and 2007 Israeli prime ministers

made offers of Palestinian statehood.

They were met on both occasions with

rejection, then violence. In 2005 Israel

vacated the Gaza Strip. It became an

enclave of terror. On Sunday, four

young Israelis were run over in yet an-

other terror attack. The ideal of a Jew-

ish and faultlessly democratic state is

a noble one. Not at the risk of the exis-

tence of the state itself.

The Paris conference takes place on

the eve of a new administration that’s

indifferent to prevailing orthodoxies

regarding the Palestinians. David

Friedman, Donald Trump’s nominee to

be ambassador to Israel, is unequivo-

cal in his support for the Jewish

state, determined to move the U.S.

Embassy to Jerusalem, unscandalized

by settlements and unmoved by sug-

gestions that Israel’s safety requires

the empowerment of her enemies.

These heresies alone recommend him

for the job.

Meanwhile, anyone genuinely con-

cerned with the future of the Palestin-

ians might urge them to elect better

leaders, improve their institutions, and

stop giving out sweets to celebrate the

murder of their neighbors.

Write [email protected].

The views of Trump’s

ambassador to Israel

recommend him for the job.

GLOBAL

VIEW

By Bret

Stephens

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Lying Liars, Untruths, Politics and the Press

Gerard Baker’s case for journalistic

integrity and truth-telling in “Trump,

‘Lies’ and Honest Journalism” (op-ed,

Jan. 6) is, perhaps unintentionally, an

indictment of today’s traditional me-

dia and “fresher news organizations”

that are less reluctant to call Presi-

dent-elect Donald Trump a liar.

Mr. Baker, the Journal’s editor in

chief, felt compelled to explain to his

media colleagues why he would be

careful, as a news reporter, about la-

beling Mr. Trump a liar when he tells

an obvious falsehood. Mr. Baker’s

“old-school” journalistic preference is

to point out when politicians say

things that are untrue, but he gener-

ally is uncomfortable making a “liar,

liar pants on fire” moral judgment as

to intent. Mr. Baker’s argument for ob-

jective reporting instead of name call-

ing set off a media firestorm regard-

ing his—and, by association, The Wall

Street Journal’s—inappropriate and

“disturbing” circumspection.

According to Gallup Polls regard-

ing American perception of media

ethics, the truth-telling journalists

who want Mr. Baker to call Mr.

Trump a liar are themselves consid-

ered dishonest (or biased) by a plu-

rality of Americans. Less than a quar-

ter of Gallup Poll respondents in a

study published last month rated

journalists as high or very high in

honesty and ethics. Many believed

that most news reporters were will-

fully and deliberately attempting to

deceive voters about Mr. Trump.

As a general rule, traditional media

aren’t telling outright lies, using Mr.

Baker’s criteria for lying, but they are

assumed to be slanting or misrepre-

senting facts in accordance with their

implicit ideological biases.

GLENNDALTON

Washington

Mr. Baker’s point could’ve been

made clearer by citing some of Hil-

lary Clinton’s deliberate untruths,

made for the sole purpose of deceiv-

ing her audience.

One reason Mr. Trump won the

election is that he spoke very plainly

and directly. His messages were easy

to understand, resonated with his au-

dience and were much more believable

that the intelligence-defying claims of

his opponent.

ALEXJULEWITZ

Nashua, N.H.

Mr. Trump speaks more in the tra-

dition of a salesman than a statesman.

He isn’t so much “lying,” as speaking

impressionistically. We cannot expect

a careful thinker and speaker in this

presidency; if we adjust our expecta-

tions accordingly, we will see him not

as a “liar,” but as one who is used to

“selling his ideas” through force of

personality and exaggeration.

LINDAAMESNICOLOSI

Thousand Oaks, Calif.

There is a difference between be-

ing wrong and lying. George W. Bush

may have been wrong about Saddam

Hussein having WMD. But President

Obama’s statement—“If you like the

plan you have, you can keep it. If you

like the doctor you have, you can

keep your doctor, too”—was a lie

(June 6, 2009). Did the New York

Times and Washington Post repeat-

edly point this out?

STANLEYMOGELSON

Philadelphia

Mr. Baker could have expanded the

question back to interviewer Chuck

Todd by saying how the Journal would

characterize things said not just by Mr.

Trump, but by Bill Clinton, Mrs. Clin-

ton, Harry Reid and President Obama.

Or maybe Mr. Baker should have just

responded with the admonishment

George Costanza gave Jerry Seinfeld:

“It’s not a lie if you believe it.”

The bottom line is that the question

by Mr. Todd reflected his personal

politics, was intended as a back-

handed smear of Mr. Trump and had

nothing to do with journalism.

LARRYSTEWART

Vienna, Va.

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