President Obama: How Can I Miss You If You Won’t Go Away

No, this isn’t the title of a country music song.¹  It’s a comment people have made about President Obama’s decision to stay in Washington after he leaves office.  The President has said that he will stay in Washington so that Sasha, who is a sophomore at Sidwell Friends high school, doesn’t have to change schools.

Most past presidents have followed the tradition of George Washington and left town after their presidency.  (Woodrow Wilson was the last president to stay in Washington, but he was too sick for it to matter.)  But with today’s media, et al, leaving town is less a physical thing than mental.  Today, it doesn’t matter where an ex-president is.  If he wants to say something, the media will be there, one way or the other.  Especially, I would imagine, in the case of Barack Obama.

But you have to wonder how much Barack Obama will be leaving, regardless of where he is living.  He has already said:

“Now, that doesn’t mean that if a year from now or a year and a half from now or two years from now, there is an issue of such moment, such import, that isn’t just a debate about a particular tax bill or a particular policy, but goes to some foundational issues about our democracy that I might not weigh in.”

With Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress targeting Obamacare and many other things that President Obama would consider signature accomplishments, will President Obama really wait a whole year?

One also wonders if he will be as bad as Jimmy Carter, who went so far as to write personal letters to the members of the United Nations Security Council in the lead-up to the first Gulf War, urging them to vote against a resolution authorizing the use of force against Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.  This was very probably a violation of the Logan Act, which prohibits U.S. citizens from negotiating with foreign governments in connection with disputes with the United States.²  President George H.W. Bush was understandably upset, but he told National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft to let the matter drop.³

It could be particularly difficult for President Obama to remain quiet when he sees his popularity rating so much higher than Donald Trump’s, though, on the other hand, it isn’t that much of a compliment to have a higher approval rating than either of the participants in the Presidential Election from He**.⁴

President Obama has said that, once he leaves office, he wants to build up the base of the Democratic Party at the local level.  Certainly, it has faltered over the last eight years.  The bench strength at the national level is down, too.  When the two major contenders for the presidential nomination are 68 and 74, as Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were last year, you have to wonder about your depth.

But how are new people going to develop if President Obama is in Washington, attracting attention and speaking out.  If he is not careful, President Obama will become the voice of opposition to Donald Trump⁵ (along with such other “new” voices as Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer⁶).  That is not the way to build up Democratic leaders for the future.  That, however, is a concern more for the Democratic Party than me.

I suppose all that remains is to guess the “over/under” on how soon, after he leaves office, President Obama will speak out against a Donald Trump policy or initiative.  It could make for a great office pool after the Super Bowl is over (assuming President Obama waits that long).⁷
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¹ Actually, it is.  See here.
² More particularly, the Logan Act reads as follows:

“Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.”

³ See George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (1998), p. 413-14.  One wonders if Donald Trump would so magnanimous.
⁴ President Obama has said that, if he had run, he would have beaten Donald Trump.  President Obama should be careful about saying that.  I know people who voted for former Secretary Clinton, but who would not have voted for President Obama.
⁵ Republicans had this problem with Dick Cheney in 2009.
⁶ Sarcasm intended.
⁷ In terms of running the over-under pool, if Las Vegas can’t do it, is Pete Rose available?
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UPDATE (1/12/17 7:00 pm): Corrected a typo in the last sentence of the main body of the post.