The Obama presidency is not even over, but the historical retrospectives are already piling up. Paul Krugman put one down in October of last year, arguing that Obama is “one of the most consequential and, yes, successful presidents in American history.” Jonathan Chait came through this week with an even more laudatory case, arguing that Obama will get a big sloppy kiss from history — and if he doesn’t, it will be because history is full of sentimentality and myth.
One problem common to both these arguments is that they do not grapple with the really troubling parts of the president’s legacy. Krugman quickly glosses over them, while Chait does not even mention them, entirely omitting the words “drone,” “torture,” “CIA,” or “Snowden.”
