I love a good real estate analogy, so naturally I had to admire the way Erick Erickson, the conservative blogger, recently described the last-minute flurry of actions emanating from the Obama White House. “Obama and John Kerry,” Erickson tweeted, “are like tenants who trash a place as they are being evicted.” Except, in this case, the analogy is a few degrees off. The president isn’t really trashing anything. It’s more like he’s hurriedly adding the bold, modernist touches his landlord always resisted — repainting walls, recessing lights, tearing up carpets and restaining floors — in hopes that the guy who’s moving in next won’t have the time or tenacity required to undo them. […]
Kerry should not have given his speech denouncing Israel. Obama should not be filling jobs at the last hour. It’s tempting to exploit the time you have left for maximum impact, but it’s also self-serving, and it’s bound to be fleeting. Because if there’s one thing Obama should have learned from his futile strategy of governing by “phone and pen” — if there’s one thing that should be clear as Republicans prepare to obliterate much of his second term in a matter of hours — it’s that you can’t build anything lasting by executive fiat. Sooner or later, whatever you achieve with the flourish of a single pen is erased with about the same casual effort.
What history will most remember, unfortunately, is that you refused to stand down when the verdict was in. That’s no way for an otherwise graceful president to go out. …
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