ArcaMax

As we reach the quarter-century mark, the 21st century has turned out a tragic disappointment. Hopes were high, leaving the world wars and Holocaust of the 20th century behind. Once, even globalization sounded good.

If the 21st century were a Broadway show, it would be a flop, closed by now.

The prelude was the Supreme Court giving George W. Bush the presidency by one vote, 5-4. The spark and carbonation of the Clinton era faded out, replaced by a Texan the media (read: Chris Matthews) decided they'd rather have a beer with than Al Gore.

If you believe in foreshadowing as I do, the cataclysmic events of the 9/11 terrorist attacks were somehow bound to happen, even though Bill Clinton had warned Bush -- and by extension, his national security adviser Condoleezza Rice -- that al-Qaeda was the No. 1 threat to the United States. We were a sleeping giant on that dark, deadly day.

Sept. 11, 2001, goaded Bush into two wars of aggression, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both took years to lose, costing $4 trillion and thousands of military casualties. Bush's false premise, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, was a pretext told to the American people and military service members. Bush had his secretary of state, Colin Powell, tell it to the United Nations, like a good soldier.

At home, we witnessed New Orleans, the beautiful and beguiling city, drown in the summer of 2005. Hurricane Katrina's wind and water flooded levees, streets and homes. Nearly 1,400 people died in the disaster, while Bush tipped the wings of Air Force One and bantered with the tardy guy in charge of federal relief, "Brownie."

Wow. This was the commander in chief? Sweltering and helpless New Orleans' misery didn't even feel like America. That's when the analogue between the Bush wars abroad and his careless response at home kicked in. Bush left office an unpopular president.

Then Barack Obama sailed into office on the wings of the Great Recession. He inherited a financial fiasco. Unfortunately, the cure, the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, was not large enough to fully revive the economy. A "jobless recovery" ensued for years. Wall Street bankers and mortgage lenders who caused the crisis were never punished.

The historic passage of Obamacare in 2010 led to the Tea Party election, a hostile response in the fall. "Fall" describes the rest of the charismatic Obama's presidency.

Like many, I fell for Obama's soaring way with words. Yet he naively appointed Republican James Comey as FBI director. Comey twice played an instrumental part in Hillary Clinton's loss to Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential race. That is a known fact.

Why didn't Obama fire Comey? Because "Hillary's going to win anyway."

Social media and Big Tech barons emerged during this period, disrupting normal human communication across ages. Obama chose not to regulate Silicon Valley.

The same "Hillary" line surfaced when the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, refused to hold hearings for Merrick Garland, a new Supreme Court nominee, after Antonin Scalia died at a luxury hunting ranch in 2016. He denied Obama's presidential privilege so brazenly it left Washington breathless.

Obama didn't thunder or threaten the Kentucky senator. He let the insult pass, which a president is loathe to do. The upshot is that he left a high court seat open for Trump to fill. As 2016 played out, Hillary didn't win anyway.

Abruptly, the Trump White House issued a Muslim travel ban in 2017. Soon after, Trump took a match to burn much of the Obama legacy: the Paris Agreement on climate, and the Iran nuclear deal.

Both had been achieved by Obama's first-rate secretary of state, John Kerry. Obamacare survived by one late-night Senate vote, John McCain's (R-Ariz.). That was breathtaking too.

Obama's political talents would have shone as a better-seasoned, tougher president had he stayed in the Senate longer and learned the institutional ways of Congress.

Need I tell what else happened on Trump's watch? The long 2020 pandemic claimed thousands of lives and worsened society's screen-time and loneliness epidemic. As a parting gift, Trump incited the Jan. 6 mob attack on the Capitol.

God bless America.

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The author may be reached at JamieStiehm.com. To find out more about Jamie Stiehm and other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, please visit creators.com.

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