Barack Obama 
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SOURCE: Boston Review
12/21/2020
The False Promise of Obama's 'Promised Land'
by Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins
A critique of the first volume of Obama's presidential memoir argues that the 44th President was unwilling to acknowledge the limits of the centrist liberal politics of the 1990s and unable to consider more progressive alternatives.
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SOURCE: CNN
12/15/2020
What Obama Gets Wrong on 'Defund the Police'
by Austin McCoy
"If political budgets are moral documents, then divesting heavily from institutions that have the capacity to perpetuate harms is the moral thing to do."
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SOURCE: Times Literary Supplement
12/4/2020
Governing in Prose: Realpolitik and Idealism in Obama’s First Term
by Eric Foner
Eric Foner's review of the first volume of Obama's memoir focuses on the conflict between pragmatism and idealism, and concludes that the 45th President erred in offering bailouts to bankers and expecting cooperation from Republicans, mistakes that crippled his presidency and set the stage for Trump.
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SOURCE: New York Times
11/29/2020
Trump Looms Large Now, but Maybe Not Forever
by Steve Inskeep
NPR's Steve Inskeep reflects on the prospect that historical distance will make Trump and Trumpism smaller (and not all-consuming) parts of a story about American society struggling with bigger questions of political, economic and social equality that became increasingly contentious during the Obama era.
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SOURCE: Smithsonian
11/12/2020
A Brief History of Presidential Memoirs
Presidential historian Craig Fehrman says that presidents in the early republican period shunned writing memoirs as vain and self-promoting. The quality of many subsequent presidential books suggests they were on to something. How will the recent first volume of Obama's memoirs be received?
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
11/16/2020
Jeffrey Goldberg Interviews Barack Obama on History and the State of Democracy
"If we were going to have a right-wing populist in this country, I would have expected somebody a little more appealing.”
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11/1/2020
A Kick in the Leg: The Secret, Corrupt Political History of the Nobel Peace Prize
by Unni Turrettini
The Nobel Prize Commiteee has departed from Alfred Nobel's wishes to honor the cause of global demilitarization and disarmament in favor of statements of political favor in the awarding of the Peace Prize.
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SOURCE: New York Times
9/25/2020
The Quiet 2013 Lunch That Could Have Altered Supreme Court History
Presidents throughout American history have strategized to influence the timing of justices’ exits to suit various White House priorities.
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SOURCE: TIME
8/19/2020
We Can't Tell Kamala Harris' Story Without the British Empire. We Can't Tell America's Without It Either
by Priya Satia
As Kamala Harris vies for the Vice Presidency, a complete recounting of her formation requires recognizing her as both a quintessentially American politician—because of, not despite, her being a child of immigrants—and part of a global story of the former British empire.
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SOURCE: ArtNet News
5/19/2020
In a Sign of a Divided America, President Trump Will Not Unveil Barack Obama’s New Portrait in the White House Anytime Soon
Portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama will likely not be installed at the White House until Trump is out of office.
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SOURCE: CNN
5/20/2020
Trump's Snub Over Obama Portrait is Part of a Plan
Harvard historian Henry Louis Gates weighs in on Trump's consistent antipathy towards Barack Obama.
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SOURCE: The New Republic
3/27/2020
Why Politicians Can’t Stop Talking About “Folks”
by John Patrick Leary
Most politicians are playacting: a privileged cohort of other-than-real Americans desperately trying to convince a mass following that they are, indeed, just plain folks.
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SOURCE: USA Today
3/5/2020
Obama and I took a class about socialism's dark side. Bernie would have learned a lot.
by Jonathan Zimmerman
Imagine if Sanders praised Hitler for reducing cigarette smoking or Mussolini for making the trains run on time. The American left would be up in arms.
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SOURCE: Chicago Sun Times
7/30/2019
Obama Presidential Center would have ‘adverse impact’ on historic Jackson Park, federal review concludes
The finding by the Federal Highway Administration puts pressure on the Obama Foundation to find a way to “resolve adverse effects” and turns up the heat on Mayor Lori Lightfoot to order the foundation to make those changes.
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6/30/19
The Case for Religious Progressivism
by Walter G. Moss
Those who argue, “We should keep religion out of politics,” are being simplistic. One can more properly cite individuals like Frederick Douglass, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr., Barack Obama, and Pope Francis who counter that the spiritual and moral values commonly advocated by major religions should inspire our politics.
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SOURCE: AP
6/11/2019
Judge: Obama center construction can move forward in Chicago
While the library has also faced criticism from residents over the traffic it will bring and people it will displace, Tuesday’s decision was largely celebrated by neighborhood organizations and business groups.
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3/10/19
Three Unexpected Deaths That Shaped Presidential History
by Ronald L. Feinman
Unexpected tragedy in the lives of three political leaders—John F. Kennedy, Jr., Paul Wellstone, and Joe Biden—demonstrate the profound impact of chance on political history.
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SOURCE: Daily Beast
3/2/19
Barack Obama’s Presidential Library Is Making a Mockery of Transparency
by Anthony Clark
The leader of the “most transparent administration in history” has been anything but transparent when it comes to plans for his presidential center.
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SOURCE: NY Times Magazine
2/20/19
The Obama Presidential Library That Isn’t
President Obama unveiled the plans for the Obama Presidential Center in May 2017. He said he wanted a place that “looked forward, not backward, and would provide a place to train future leaders.”
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SOURCE: Huffington Post
2/18/19
Barack Obama Shares His Recommended Reading For Black History Month
The books, letters and articles Obama shared were meant to provide “some essential context about the challenges that many people of color face every day,” he wrote on Facebook.
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