Odd shaped and off-putting at first glance, a 225 foot high pile of windowless concrete with mostly empty book shelves and none of the Presidential Papers, but… Well….. It has full size basketball court which is important to the presidency of the United States because….. Well, … It really isn’t. The concrete pile dominates the Chicago skyline with a mostly windowless, monolithic exterior. Critics have compared it to a “fridge dropped off the Death Star,” a “Soviet flak tower,” or a “sci-fi headquarters” (dubbing it the “Obamalisk”). The verified monstrosity stands as a monument to hypocrisy and the Obamas’ unrelenting hunger for the spotlight. — a legacy project for a presidency that disappointed more Americans than its architects care to admit. Omar Shareef, president of the African American Contractors Association, says his contractors are owed money and feel silenced by nondisclosure agreements they signed.
What drives the Obama’s to build such a monument is their belief, fed by years of sycophancy, that their legacy rests on genuine achievement. It’s a stunning conceit. Obama made history as the first Black president, and he remains a gifted communicator. But beyond that, the record is thin.
The Obama Presidential Center is the perfect monument to Obama’s presidency itself: a grand gesture, lavishly executed, that promised transformation and delivered disappointment. They are perhaps, nice people who grifted into a wonderful situation. Few people what to visit a monument to that. The Wall Street Journal took note of it’s lackluster, uninspiring collection of ephemera.
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