By Harry Colbert, Jr., Managing Editor<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Twenty-Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution suppressed the will of the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It reads, \u201cNo person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of President more than once.\u201d The amendment was passed by Congress in 1947, but not ratified until 1951. It was our nation\u2019s first president, George Washington, who voluntarily declined to run for a third term who set a precedent of presidents serving no more than two years, but the framers of the Constitution never wrote that in the original document. And because no president had been elected to more than two terms, there was little need for a Constitutional amendment until Franklin Delano Roosevelt came along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Roosevelt, a pragmatic Democrat, was elected in the throes of the Great Depression. Roosevelt\u2019s New Deal, with its creation of several labor and housing agencies and policies, guided the country from despair to prosperity. Overwhelmingly popular, Roosevelt was elected to an unprecedented third \u2026 and an astonishing fourth term as president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Proving that partisan shenanigans are nothing new, a Republican led Congress figured if you can\u2019t beat \u2018em, cheat \u2018em, thus they passed the 22nd<\/sup> Amendment. Damn the will of the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fast forward some 50 or so years and the same deregulatory policies that led to the Great Depression were in effect under the leadership of Republican President George W. Bush and a Republican House and Senate. For those old enough to remember (which is pretty much anyone capable of reading these words), 2008 wasn\u2019t the smoothest of times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Economically we were in the throes of the Great Recession \u2026 the worst economic time in the U.S. since \u2026 you guessed it, the Great Depression. Unemployment was almost double what it had been in previous years. The American auto industry was on the verge of collapse. The pre-election price of gas was above $4 a gallon. We were also in the midst of a costly (lives even more so than the $2 trillion cost to American taxpayers) and unpopular war. The deregulated housing market was in chaos \u2013 in some cases with entire neighborhoods in foreclosure. Things were so bad that when on Sept. 29, 2008 the Dow Jones Industrial Average had a record-breaking single day drop of 777.68 points, Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain wanted to cancel the debates with then-Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama to focus on the national crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Citing hope and change as the reason, Americans elected Obama over McCain in a landslide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The election was historic \u2026 and would forever alter the course of America \u2026 both good and bad. With Michelle Obama at his side, Barack Obama would spend the next eight years as a Black man in the White House. For some it was the dream we thought would never become reality. For others it was their worst nightmare \u2026 and they would stop at nothing to ensure his political demise with a level of disrespect and obstructionism never before seen. Through all of it, President Obama remained stoic \u2026 presidential. But more importantly, like a trusted mailman in blizzard-like conditions, he delivered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our<\/em> president delivered on saving the auto industry. Our<\/em> president delivered on providing healthcare for all with the Affordable Care Act. Our<\/em> president delivered on bringing down our national debt while at the same time raising our international image. Our<\/em> president delivered on ending the war in Iraq, and even after the war was ended, our<\/em> president again delivered in bringing Osama Bin Laden to justice. Our president \u2026 Barack Obama, did that.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n By the way, the unemployment rate is at its lowest level in nine years. Housing is robust. The stock market has soared to all-time highs. The U.S. Supreme Court has added its first Latina-American to the bench. Gas dipped under $2; and until the election of Donald Trump, was holding steady.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To quote a popular social media meme, \u201cThanks Obama.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n First Lady Michelle Obama served as the perfect complement to her husband. Intelligent, poised, sophisticated and regal, Michelle Obama presented as a role model to children of all ethnicities. Her initiative to end childhood obesity will have lasting positive impacts for generations to follow. Her Democratic National Convention speeches will be remembered as some of the greatest speeches in American history. Her sense of style had forever changed the way we visualize a first lady. For many, there are dreams of a 2020 President-elect Michelle Obama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Again, \u201cThanks (Michelle) Obama.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n If it were not for the 22nd<\/sup> Amendment, President Obama, whose popularity is the highest it has ever been, would most likely have sailed to victory in pursuit of a third term. It seems again that the Republicans have obstructed him \u2026 even if it was a pre-imposed obstruction. We knew going in that we\u2019d get eight years at best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But oh how we long for more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we talk about the legacy of our outgoing president, of course it will be properly noted that he was the nation\u2019s first acknowledged African-American president (we\u2019ll save the debate on President Dwight Eisenhower for another date), but in totality, that is not how we should remember President Obama. President Obama wasn\u2019t a great Black president; he was a great American<\/em> president. His body of work \u2013 in the face of fierce Republican obstructionism \u2013 is the story that should be told in history books to come. The fact he did it as a Black man \u2013 though a source of pride for nearly every Black person in America \u2013 should only be an aside to his amazing legacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If I may speak for all of us, on behalf of our entire nation \u2026 and the world, we say thank you to two great Americans, President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Harry Colbert, Jr., Managing Editor The Twenty-Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution suppressed the will of the people. It reads, \u201cNo person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4696,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[484,2886,536],"class_list":["post-4695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-barack-obama","tag-twenty-second-amendment","tag-u-s-constitution","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Insight-News-Website-Images-9-3.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4695"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4697,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4695\/revisions\/4697"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}