US President Barack Obama's new year resolution is probably to go on being fantastic. He is a brilliant man, but also egotistical, reluctant to compromise, even selfish. Asked if he could have beaten US President-elect Donald Trump in the 2016 election, he replied in the affirmative.
What was defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton supposed to make of that? Who cares? This isn't about her.
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Obama says he would have beaten Trump
US President Barack Obama says he would have beaten Donald Trump 'if I had run again', and implied the Clinton campaign was guilty of playing it safe.
It's about what it's always been about: Barack Obama.
In the final weeks of his administration, we have seen Obama the patrician, gracious and patient in his relations with Trump's transition team.
Then there's Obama the Caesar, with an eye on his immortal reputation. His relations with Congress have been bad, so he has relied on executive orders to get things done. That leaves his legacy exposed, since his successor can come in and overturn them. Thus the outgoing President is trying to get as much done as possible, to leave Trump with a pile of policies so thick that his first months will be dominated by repealing them.
Obama has ordered the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo Bay. In an effort to reduce the number of non-violent drug offenders in jail, he has set a record for commuting sentences: 231 in one day. Funding for abortion provider Planned Parenthood will be protected. Oil drilling in much of the Arctic and off the Atlantic coast is now banned. But all these pale into insignificance next to his foreign policy manoeuvres.
Obama has expelled Russian diplomats in protest at alleged hacking during the presidential election. It's far too little, too late.
In 2012, Obama laughed at the Republicans for identifying Russia as a strategic threat. Since then, he and John Kerry have presided over the carve-up of Ukraine and Russian dominance in the Syrian conflict. We now know that Obama warned Putin twice over allegations of hacking. By implication, he was ignored twice. That's humiliating.
Why get tough now? I suspect Obama's goal isn't to punish the Russians but to pass on a new Cold War-style standoff to Trump. Trump got lucky: Putin didn't take the bait.
Meanwhile, Obama decided to wave through a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements. On this, the President defies sanity. He overturned decades of US policy, removed any doubt in Palestinian minds that they have a right to demand Israeli land, and left many Israeli citizens in a legal no-man's land. None of this was necessary: today, Israel is far from the heart of the Middle East's troubles. And it doesn't even fit Obama's record of largely unblemished support for Jewish self-determination.
So why, why, why? Domestic politics. The Republicans have allied with Benjamin Netanyahu; Trump wants to join an Israeli front against the Iran deal. Obama is, again, tying his opposition up in knots. It is petty, it is spiteful. It's what he does.
Let me give you a chilling example. To get his health reform bill passed in 2010, Obama said federal funds would never be used to finance abortions. But when the law was implemented, the government found a way around this: employers would pay for them instead.
Catholic and other religious employers suddenly faced the prospect of providing insurance that would give their workers access to abortifacients, prescription contraceptives and surgical sterilisation. For refusing to comply, the Little Sisters of the Poor, which cares for the elderly, faced up to $US70 million a year in federal fines - so its plucky nuns took their case to the Supreme Court and, thankfully, won. They beat a naked attempt to overrule the separation of church and state and make society more liberal by decree.
To brand Trump a divisive candidate ignores the fact that America was a very divided place before he came along - and it's Obama who widened those divisions. Trump and Obama are stylistically opposite. But they share a view of the presidency as a tool to get things done, a blunt instrument used in the most careless and imperious manner.
Neither man is seriously interested in bringing the country together. Their loyalty is to their coalition alone. Anyone who doesn't like them isn't worth talking to.
One refreshing change is that Trump is at least honest. On Saturday, he tweeted: "Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don't know what to do." That tweet was aimed at Barack Obama - the sorest of losers.
Tim Stanley is a historian, and columnist and leader writer for The Telegraph.
Telegraph, London
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