A Brief History
On January 22, 2009, only a couple days after being sworn in, President Barack Obama issued an Executive Order ordering the closure of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where suspected terrorists were being held. Congress overrode the President, and Gitmo stayed open. Obama also suffered the failure to get universal national health care passed and had to settle for a watered-down version known as “Obamacare.”
Digging Deeper
Almost all presidents fail at certain projects and here we list a few:
President Nixon, who promised “peace with honor” in Vietnam, but the North Vietnamese were not about to be “honorable.”
President GHW Bush who said, “Read my lips, No New Taxes!” Yes, we got new taxes!
President Clinton, who promised “universal health care,” and failed.
President GW Bush, who promised to catch Osama bin Laden “dead or alive,” and did not.
President Trump, who promised to repeal and replace “Obamacare,” but achieved neither.
Question for students (and subscribers): What do you think is the biggest presidential failure? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Cohn, Jonathan. The Ten Year War: Obamacare and the Unfinished Crusade for Universal Coverage. St. Martin’s Press, 2021.
Morgan, Matthew. Dead or Alive: Bin Laden’s Last Days. Parthenon Books, 2011.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by thisisbossi from Washington, DC, USA, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
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