Obama Can’t Endorse During the Democratic Primary, So He’s Just Pointing Out How Hard the Job Is Instead
On the other hand perhaps our president is just on a mission to put the ills and ghosts of last century to rest.
By the time President Obama filed past more than 2 million people lining the streets of Ho Chi Minh City and flew to Japan aboard Air Force One on Wednesday night for a Group of Seven summit, he hadn’t publicly uttered the words “Donald Trump” in days.
And yet, Obama’s week abroad not so subtly serves a purpose beyond foreign relations: how he can help Democrats’ looming campaign against the billionaire GOP presidential candidate.
Pledging to stay neutral in the Democratic primary, Obama has instead struck a middle ground to help the party’s likely nominee, Hillary Clinton. He has engaged in a twist on the so-called Rose Garden campaign strategy where incumbent presidents lean on the trappings of their office to remind voters of their power and achievements. Obama is instead reminding voters of the seriousness of the job and, by extension, his belief in Clinton’s readiness for it.
On Friday, this president who has repeatedly pointed to the heady challenges on his desk as an argument against making a former reality show star the next commander in chief travels to Hiroshima, where one of two nuclear bombs ever used in warfare was dropped, to underscore the horrors of war and the life-or-death decisions that presidents face.