January 1, Obama Center Visitors Claim ‘Scandal-Free’ Legacy While MAGA Americans Remember the Truth

Wyatt’s Take

• Opening weekend visitors at Obama’s new Chicago center called his presidency ‘scandal-free’ and an example of ‘Black excellence’ — conveniently forgetting Fast and Furious, IRS targeting, drone strikes on Americans, and weaponized surveillance of journalists.
• Attendees slammed Trump and claimed America has taken a ‘dark turn’ under his leadership, while praising Obama as a unifying figure who fought for ‘vulnerable people’ — ignoring the division and government overreach that defined his eight years.
• The media memory-holes major Obama scandals while visitors call his legacy a ‘light in present darkness’ — revealing how the left rewrites history to protect their own.

Opening weekend visitors at Barack Obama’s new presidential center in Chicago praised the 44th president as a scandal-free example of unity and excellence. But their glowing reviews conveniently ignored the actual scandals that plagued his administration — from Fast and Furious to IRS targeting of conservatives.

“The community is great, we’re just kind of glad it’s here,” Lauren Tillman, who lives about 40 minutes outside of Chicago, said. “We needed something like this. Chicago looks like a certain place to certain people who are not from the area… so I just think this brought everybody together, like, ‘oh there’s something for the community,’ for Black people, and on Juneteenth, so I thought that was great, too.”

The presidential center’s opening weekend began with a star-studded private ceremony and concert on Thursday night. The 19.3-acre campus opened to the public on Friday during the Juneteenth holiday, which celebrates the day Black slaves were declared free in 1865.

“Just knowing that Chicago doesn’t always get the best rep, to know that we’ve had a Black president come from this place, and then to memorialize his legacy is just great,” said Ashley Woods, who joined Tillman at the opening.

“To know that [Obama] was going to try to do at least something for his people, that meant a lot to me and being here means a lot,” Tillman added.

“And I think, to piggyback off that, I think the legacy is Black excellence,” Woods continued. “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 so 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 and Peggy Neely-Harris made the trip from St. Louis for the weekend’s festivities.

“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,” Rogers said.

Neely-Harris agreed, calling the brand new presidential center a symbol of hope and renewal. She said the center is a “light in this present darkness.”

“[Obama] has left an excellent example of how you should live, what type of character you should have and the love of family and community,” Rogers continued. “You can see love just exudes from them, and I love to see love in action.”

“No scandal,” she added.

That claim doesn’t match the historical record. Obama faced multiple major scandals and controversies during his two terms in the White House.

Obama’s DOJ infamously seized records of news phone lines, including a phone number that belonged to the parents of a reporter. The seizure was approved after a warrant was granted by a judge.

In an affidavit seeking the warrant, an FBI agent called reporter James Rosen a likely criminal “co-conspirator” in a violation of the Espionage Act.

Obama also faced government weaponization claims when his IRS allegedly slow-rolled the tax-exempt nonprofit approval of grassroots conservative organizations that set out to oppose his agenda. Groups with words such as “Tea Party” or “Patriot” in their names were allegedly hindered from forming for months and years.

Operation Fast and Furious was another chart-topping Obama scandal. ATF agents intentionally allowed illegal straw purchases of weapons near the U.S. southern border with Mexico, in hopes that tracking the firearms would lead them directly to high-level cartel kingpins.

But the Obama-era agency failed to monitor at least 2,000 of the weapons, which did in fact make their way into the hands of dangerous characters.

One of the weapons in the ill-fated sting was used to kill Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in 2010.

When, in 2012, then-Attorney General Eric Holder was subpoenaed during a House Oversight Committee investigation into the matter, he refused to comply. He disallowed the committee from seeing thousands of pages of records pertaining to the operation.

He later became the first U.S. cabinet official to be held in contempt of Congress, but the Obama DOJ failed to prosecute him.

Obama also ordered the extrajudicial drone strike killings of four terror-tied Americans in Yemen without due process.

Twenty-six-year-old Chicago resident Valerie Reynolds said she thinks the center will improve the image of the city’s South Side, which often finds itself in news headlines for violence and poverty.

“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,” she said. “It’s absolutely something that we are missing today. I’ve seen divisions in this country in ways that I’ve never seen before, and I was reminded of just how vast those divisions are being out here today, because it’s the first time I’ve felt this closeness since he ran for office in 2008.”

An emotional Kia Ware, a woman from Virginia, said the grand opening of the center was a sad reminder of the direction of the U.S. since Obama left office.

“It makes me sad because 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,” she said.

Ware added that Obama is still a “powerhouse” in the Democratic Party. She said that people who believe in his legacy want him to “step back in.”

“I guess it just means, like for me, I just am feeling very thankful that we have those eight years of history for putting women forward, putting minorities forward,” she said. “I felt like that unification, just seeing all people of different backgrounds and ages and generations here, I get that feeling.”

Wyatt Matters

The left has perfected the art of rewriting history. Obama’s presidency was marked by scandal after scandal — from weaponizing the IRS against conservatives to running guns to Mexican cartels that killed an American Border Patrol agent. He spied on journalists, killed American citizens without trial, and presided over eight years of increasing division and government overreach. But none of that matters to the faithful gathered in Chicago, who see only what they want to see. For hardworking Americans who lost jobs, saw their healthcare costs skyrocket, and watched their communities decline under Obama’s policies, the ‘scandal-free’ narrative is a sick joke. History remembers the truth, even when the media won’t.