President Barack Obama, Becoming a bully-in-chief

OP-EDS & REVIEWS By Gil Troy, The Montreal Gazette, 8-11-11 U.S. President Barack Obama is smart, eloquent and talented, but inexperienced as an executive. While he still needs more management experience, the presidency is not the right place for on-the-job training. Photograph by: Alex Wong, Getty Images The downgrading of America’s credit rating just days [...]

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Obama at 50 Should Have More Faith in America

OP-EDS & REVIEWS By Gil Troy, 8-4-11 Barack Obama turns fifty today, August 4th.  Both he and his country appear battered these days, as Obama’s White House recuperates from the bruising debt ceiling showdown and the United States remains stuck combating two wars along with one long-lasting recession.  But the progress Obama and America have [...]

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Obama Should Own His Continuities with the Bush White House

OP-EDS & REVIEWS By Gil Troy, 7-10-11 Mr. Troy is Professor of History at McGill University, and the author, most recently, of The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction, (OUP) and Leading from the Center: Why Moderates Make the Best Presidents. His other books include: Hillary Rodham Clinton: Polarizing First Lady and Morning in America: [...]

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Osama’s Spectacular Failure

OP-EDS & REVIEWS By Gil Troy, 5-2-11 Osama bin Laden died a spectacular failure. While his predecessor Yassir Arafat proved that terrorism can work, bin Laden proved terrorism’s limits.  Osama killed more people more flamboyantly than Arafat.  But, under Arafat, the Palestinians blasted their way onto the world’s agenda.  Osama’s nihilistic terrorism was so destructive it [...]

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Obama 2.0 Must Lead from the Center Humbly and Substantively

By Gil Troy, HNN, 11-4-10 Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University. He is the author of “Leading from the Center: Why Moderates Make the Best Presidents” (Basic Books, 2008). His latest book, co-edited with Vincent J. Cannato, is “Living in the Eighties” (Oxford University Press, 2009). The American voters gave President Barack [...]

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Obama at Midterm – Grading on a Presidential Curve

By Gil Troy, Institute for Research on Public Policy’s Policy Options, Oct. 2010 The United States has traveled a long way from the euphoria of Election Night, 2008 to the crankiness of the 2010 midterm elections. Even President Barack Obama’s most ardent supporters agree that the turnaround in popular support he has experienced has been [...]

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Gil Troy “For Obama, What A Difference A Week Made”

NPR, 4-6-10 The protracted health care battle looks to have taught the White House something about power, says presidential historian Gil Troy — a lesson that will inform Obama’s pursuit of his initiatives going forward. “I think that Obama realizes that presidential power is a muscle, and the more you exercise it, the stronger it [...]

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Welcome to Obama’s America

By passing health care reform, the president has become a transformational leader, although not a post-partisan one. By Gil Troy, The Mark, 3-26-10 A great orator I know once told me that there are three versions of every speech – the one you plan, the one you actually deliver, and the one you wish you [...]

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Gil Troy: “Obama’s Siren Song of … Sacrifice?”:

Miller McCune, 2-7-10 Calls to work together for the common good during the current crises have been emanating at breakneck pace from the Obama administration. Academics discuss how to get the results of a Roosevelt, and not a Carter. Historian Gil Troy of McGill University in Montreal also finds that instructive, noting that gearing people [...]

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Once Again the State of the Union Makes a President Strong

By Gil Troy, HNN, 1-28-10 The State of the Union Address is Woodrow Wilson’s gift to future presidents. President Thomas Jefferson submitted the annual update the Constitution mandated in writing, deeming presidential appearances before Congress too monarchical. In December 1913, after his first year in office, Wilson decided to address a joint session of Congress [...]

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