By T.H. Johnson, Investigator with Team OMIG

Well, duh!  Jeez! I wonder why?

I’m fascinated with how writer David Brooks ended his Op-Ed column in the NY Times article posted yesterday of I Miss Barack Obama. They always have to start off, it seems, with telling you why they dislike Barack Obama before presenting a lengthy diatribe of why they like him. What Brooks ends with captures the essence of why anyone with common sense would like President Obama, his administration and the personal lives of he and his wife have been without scandal. Ronald Reagan gave us the Iran-Contra scandal which became of hodge podge of double dealing between the very individuals who held Americans captive in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and the Contra rebels attempting to overthrow a government that replaced a brutal military controlled despotic Nicaraguan dictator who the U.S. had supported for years.    Its insidious corruption and lawlessness on the part of US officials fueled the greatest drug epidemic of crack cocaine in America that would ever be experienced.

Even the Democratic Clinton administration wore us down with the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and now Hiliary Clinton having to account for access to classified information being sent and stored via her unprotected personal computer server is becoming an anchor weight attached to her integrity.

But there is a tone of ugliness creeping across the world, as democracies retreat, as tribalism mounts, as suspiciousness and authoritarianism take center stage.  Brooks is certainly right about that as we listen to the Republican front runners like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.

Thus, Brooks ends with Obama radiates an ethos of integrity, humanity, good manners and elegance that I’m beginning to miss, and that I suspect we will all miss a bit, regardless of who replaces him.  To be honest, David, very many of us Americans and members of our global community will too.  His administration has been refreshing, like a brief shot of fresh air but now what?  We just don’t know, and that’s what’s depressing.