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68: Is Obama Great? Wait and See

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Sinopsis

For the Obama administration, it’s the beginning of the end: the fourth quarter of his presidency. That means political junkies have moved on to 2016, while historians, scholars and, undoubtedly, the president himself have turned their attention to Obama’s legacy. Will he be known for Obamacare? For his Wall St. reforms? Or for ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? And how will people view those actions -- as accomplishments or failures? “These things are not fixed,” says Julian Zelizer, political historian at Princeton University. Presidential legacies shift and change over time, so Zelizer counsels that chief executives shouldn’t work too hard to shape how they’re viewed in the future. “The best they can do is just build a very good and vibrant record,” says Zelizer. Take Lyndon Johnson, the subject of Zelizer’s new book “The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society”. For decades after Johnson left office, says Zelizer, “the one thing anyone could remember abo