Why Obama’s got to go

Four years on, the sad truth is that despite the initial ‘cause for great rejoicing’, Barack Obama has not delivered on his election promises, argues Niall Ferguson

I WAS a good loser four years ago. “In the grand scheme of history,” I wrote the day after Barack Obama’s election as president, “four decades is not an especially long time. Yet in that brief period America has gone from the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr to the apotheosis of Barack Obama. You would not be human if you failed to acknowledge this as a cause for great rejoicing.”

Despite having been an adviser to John McCain, I acknowledged his opponent’s remarkable qualities: His soaring oratory, his cool, hard-to-ruffle temperament, and his near-faultless campaign organisation.