Visitors who lined up for the opening weekend of the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago offered glowing tributes to the 44th president, calling his time in office a model of "Black excellence" free of scandal. The claim went unchallenged on the ground. The historical record is less cooperative.
The 19.3-acre campus opened to the public on the Juneteenth holiday after a star-studded private ceremony and concert the night before. Fox News Digital reported from the scene, interviewing visitors who had traveled from as far as Virginia and St. Louis for the occasion. Their praise for Obama was effusive. Their memory of his administration's controversies was nonexistent.
That gap, between the mythology visitors embraced and the documented failures of Obama's executive branch, deserves a closer look, especially when the mythology is being cemented in a 19-acre monument on Chicago's South Side.
Ashley Woods, who attended the opening with friend Lauren Tillman, framed the legacy in sweeping terms:
"I think the legacy is Black excellence. Again, growing up in a place like Chicago, you don't really think you can do much besides being a rapper or, you know, going into sports, but to see that somebody actually made it to the top per se, they were able to run the nation, there was very little scandal around him and his family, like it just shows you that we can be more than what America tells us we can be."
Sheryl Rogers, who drove from St. Louis, was even more succinct. When asked about scandal, she offered two words: "No scandal."
Rogers described the center's meaning in lofty terms:
"What it means for African Americans [is] a coming together, a reckoning, a remembrance of the excellence that is within each one of us, particularly in African Americans and particularly at this time when our very existence is under attack."
Tillman, who lives about 40 minutes outside Chicago, said the center brought people together. "Chicago looks like a certain place to certain people who are not from the area," she said, adding that the project felt like "something for the community, for Black people, and on Juneteenth."
These are sincere sentiments from people who clearly admire Barack Obama. Nobody begrudges anyone a sense of pride. But when that pride hardens into a claim that the Obama years were scandal-free, it rewrites history in real time, and the presidential center is the stage.
Start with Operation Fast and Furious. ATF agents intentionally allowed illegal straw purchases of firearms near the U.S. southern border with Mexico. The agency then failed to monitor at least 2,000 of those weapons. One of them was used in the 2010 killing of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
When the House Oversight Committee investigated, it subpoenaed then-Attorney General Eric Holder in 2012. Holder refused to comply, blocking the committee from seeing thousands of pages of records. He became the first U.S. cabinet official ever held in contempt of Congress.
The Obama Department of Justice declined to prosecute him.
A federal law enforcement operation that lost track of 2,000 weapons, contributed to the death of a Border Patrol agent, and ended with the attorney general stonewalling Congress, that is not "no scandal." That is a scandal with a body count.
Obama's broader foreign policy record has drawn its own sharp criticism over the years, including the Iran nuclear deal that President Trump later called a failed attempt to "bribe" Tehran.
Then there was the IRS targeting. The agency allegedly slow-rolled tax-exempt nonprofit approvals for grassroots conservative organizations opposing Obama's agenda. Groups with "Tea Party" or "Patriot" in their names found their applications delayed for months and, in some cases, years. The federal government's tax authority was used, or at minimum allowed, to obstruct the political organizing of citizens who disagreed with the president.
And the Obama DOJ seized records of Fox News phone lines, including a number belonging to the parents of a reporter. An FBI agent labeled Fox News reporter James Rosen a likely criminal "co-conspirator" in an alleged violation of the Espionage Act, in an affidavit used to seek a warrant. A journalist, treated as a criminal suspect for doing journalism.
Obama also ordered drone strikes in Yemen that killed four Americans described as terror-tied, without trial, without due process. Whether one considers that justified or not, it is a use of presidential power that would have generated nonstop outrage had it been ordered by a Republican.
None of this came up at the presidential center. None of it ever does, when the "scandal-free" talking point is in play. That phrase has become a kind of liturgical response in Democratic circles, repeated so often it no longer requires evidence, only belief.
Several attendees used the occasion to contrast Obama favorably with the current political climate. Valerie Reynolds, a 26-year-old Chicago resident, told Fox News Digital she believed the center would improve the image of the city's South Side.
"I think Barack Obama's legacy is and will continue to be the inspiration of togetherness, of the power of what can be done and what can be created when we all come together. It's absolutely something that we are missing today. I've seen divisions in this country in ways that I've never seen before."
Reynolds said the opening was "the first time I've felt this closeness since he ran for office in 2008."
Kia Ware, who traveled from Virginia, grew emotional during her interview. She described feeling "sad" about what had happened since Obama left office:
"I was so proud of everything that was accomplished during that legacy in terms of, you know, fighting for vulnerable people and vulnerable lands and protection of so many things that are now being erased forever, and I feel like it's setting us back."
Ware added that Obama remains a "powerhouse" in the Democratic Party and that people want him to "step back in." She did not elaborate on what that would look like.
Peggy Neely-Harris, who came from St. Louis with Rogers, described the center as "a light in this present darkness."
The visitors' criticisms of the current direction of the country were vague, no specific policies, no specific actions. Just a general sense that things were better before. That kind of nostalgia is understandable. It is also selective.
The Obama Presidential Center sits in a city that has struggled with violent crime, fiscal mismanagement, and population loss for decades. Multiple visitors acknowledged Chicago's reputation. Tillman said the city "looks like a certain place to certain people who are not from the area." Woods noted that "Chicago doesn't always get the best rep."
Whether a 19.3-acre campus dedicated to a former president's legacy addresses any of those underlying problems is an open question. The center held its private ceremony Thursday night before opening to the public on Friday. Attendance figures were not reported.
Obama himself spoke during the dedication ceremony, and his remarks drew attention for reasons beyond celebration. As we previously reported, Obama used the occasion to criticize America's Founders, days before the nation's 250th birthday.
Meanwhile, the financial underpinnings of the project have raised their own questions. The Obama Foundation's promised $470 million endowment reportedly sits nearly empty, even as subcontractors have claimed millions in unpaid work.
Presidential centers exist to burnish legacies. That is their purpose. Nobody walks into one expecting a balanced accounting of failures. But when visitors walk out repeating the claim that there was "no scandal", and when that claim circulates unchecked through media coverage, it becomes something more than nostalgia. It becomes a political tool.
The Obama years produced an attorney general held in contempt of Congress, a federal tax agency accused of targeting political opponents, a Justice Department that treated reporters as criminal suspects, and drone strikes that killed American citizens without trial. Reasonable people can debate the severity of each. What they cannot honestly do is pretend none of it happened.
Obama's personal conduct and family life may well have been admirable. But a presidency is not a marriage. It is the exercise of enormous power through vast federal agencies, and the Obama administration wielded that power in ways that harmed individuals, obstructed oversight, and set troubling precedents.
The political arc between Obama and Trump has been a subject of fascination for years. Obama tried to turn Trump into a joke in 2011, and then watched him win the White House five years later. The relationship between the two men, and the two political movements they represent, is far more complicated than any presidential center exhibit will capture.
The visitors in Chicago were sincere. They were proud. And they were wrong about the record. A monument built on mythology may look impressive, but it does not hold up well once someone checks the foundation.
