April 19, 2017 The Skanner Page 13
Arts & Entertainment
Wilmer J. Leon, III: The “Politics: Another Perspective” Interview
By Kam Williams
For The Skanner News
now, I would give President
Obama a “C.”
W
KW: What would you say is
his legacy?
WJL: Again, that’s a difficult
question to answer. Symbol-
ically, being the first African
American president is invalu-
able and powerful. The fact
that I can turn to my 15-year-
old son and say, “You too can
be POTUS,” is a very powerful
reality. In terms of domestic
policy, navigating the country
through the economic crisis
was an incredible accomplish-
ment. Even though he bailed
out the banks, he did nothing
for the homeowner. If he had
forced the banks to lend the
bailout money back to the
homeowner in the way of more
favorable loans, property val-
ues would have remained sta-
ble. The ACA [Affordable Care
Act] was a great accomplish-
ment even though its rollout
was an utter failure. How can
one pay so much attention to
the detail of the legislation
and then ignore its implemen-
tation? This is mind-boggling.
He should have used the Re-
cess Appointment option with
Merrick Garland. He should
have nominated an African
American woman to the Su-
preme Court instead of Kagan.
In terms of education, he con-
tinued the Bush Era neo-lib-
ilmer J. Leon, III is
a political scientist
whose primary ar-
eas of expertise are
Black Politics American Gov-
ernment, and Public Policy. Dr.
Leon has a B.S. degree in Polit-
ical Science from Hampton In-
stitute, and a Masters in Public
Administration and a Ph.D. in
Political Science from Howard
University.
He is a nationally-syndicat-
ed columnist and the host of
SiriusXM Satellite Radio’s
“Inside the Issues with Wilm-
er Leon.” He is also a regular
contributor to national and
international television news
programs, newspapers and
websites.
Kam Williams: Hi, Dr. Leon,
thanks for the interview.
Wilmer J. Leon: Kam, my
pleasure. Thank you for your
interest in my book “Politics
Another Perspective.” The
struggle continues and we can
only move forward through
fact based analysis and dia-
logue.
KW: What interested you in
publishing a collection of your
op-eds?
WJL: As a political scien-
tist, I was looking for a way to
provide to the general public
clear analysis of some of the
issues impacting the country.
I wanted it to be in a form that
would be easy for readers to
access and digest. I’ve always
received great feedback to my
op-eds. So, a collection of them
seemed to be the natural an-
swer or solution.
KW: Most of the pieces
were written during Barack
Obama’s tenure in the White
House. How would grade him
as a president?
WJL: Wow, that’s a difficult
question to answer. Usually
we take some time and allow
the lens of history to provide
some distance and space for
the analysis to be done. Right
eralization of education, No
Child Left Behind, with Race to
the Top. From a foreign policy
perspective, he continued a
lot of the Bush administration
approaches, if not policies. The
assassination of Gaddafi was
an utter failure. As a Senator,
he voted against the illegal in-
vasion of Iraq and then does a
similar thing in Libya making
the problems in the Middle
East worse. The use of drones
“
WJL: Not at all. Again, the
symbolism is invaluable, but
you can’t pay the mortgage
with symbolism. In his defense,
the African American commu-
nity, for the most part, did not
challenge him and force him to
use his bully pulpit to address
our issues. In that regard, we
gave him a pass. So many of
us were so happy to have him
there that we focused on the
politics of pigment and pheno-
type and for-
got the poli-
tics of policy.
He rewarded
other con-
stituencies
such as the LGBTQ, Latino and
women, but ran from us unless
he was forced to speak to us.
‘Right now, I would give
President Obama a “C”’
was not as benign or sterile as
he tried to make them out to
be. To a great degree, he did not
use his bully pulpit to rally his
base against the obstructionist
Congress. I don’t believe that
the politics he ran on were re-
ally his politics. I think he’s a
conservative corporatist who
ran as a centrist. He tried to be
reasonable with a House and
Senate that swore to oppose
him at every turn but thought
that his intellect was more
powerful than their racism.
Those are a few examples.
KW: Do you think African
Americans were rewarded
fairly by the Obama adminis-
tration for being his most loyal
constituency?
KW: How do you explain the
Trump victory? Do you think
the Democratic Party made a
mistake closing ranks behind
Hillary, especially after it was
obvious that Bernie was the
candidate with all the enthusi-
astic popular support?
WJL: There are a lot of fac-
tors to the Trump victory. Dr.
King called it “White back-
lash” and Dr. Ronald Walters
called it the politics of resent-
ment. A major part of this was
the backlash to 8 years of an
African American president.
See INTERVIEW on page 15