John O. Brennan Counterterrorism advisor to President Obama What did Brennan do as an advisor to Obama? In late 2008, Brennan was reportedly the top choice to become the next Director of the CIA in the incoming Obama administration. When did he begin in that position? President Obama then appointed him to be his Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, What else did he do? In August 2009, Brennan criticized some Bush-administration anti-terror policies, saying that waterboarding had threatened national security by increasing the recruitment of terrorists
Did he have any notable moments under Obama?
Besides criticizing some Bush-Administration anti-terror policies, did Counterterrorism Advisor John Brennan have any notable moments under President Obama?
In late 2008, Brennan was reportedly the top choice to become the next Director of the CIA in the incoming Obama administration. However, Brennan withdrew his name from consideration because of opposition to his CIA service under President George W. Bush and past public statements he had made in support of enhanced interrogation and the transfer of terrorism suspects to countries where they might be tortured (extraordinary rendition). President Obama then appointed him to be his Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, the President's chief counterterrorism advisor and a position that did not require Senate confirmation.  In August 2009, Brennan criticized some Bush-administration anti-terror policies, saying that waterboarding had threatened national security by increasing the recruitment of terrorists and decreasing the willingness of other nations to cooperate with the U.S. He also described the Obama administration's focus as being on "extremists" and not "jihadists". He said that using the second term, which means one who is struggling for a holy goal, gives "these murderers the religious legitimacy they desperately seek" and suggests the US is at war with the religion of Islam.  In an early December 2009 interview with the Bergen Record, Brennan remarked, "the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement communities have to bat 1.000 every day. The terrorists are trying to be successful just once". At a press conference days after the failed Christmas Day bomb attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Brennan said U.S. intelligence agencies did not miss any signs that could have prevented the attempt but later said he had let the President down by underestimating a small group of Yemeni terrorists and not connecting them to the attempted bomber. Within two weeks after the incident, however, he produced a report highly critical of the performance of U.S. intelligence agencies, concluding that their focus on terrorist attempts aimed at U.S. soil was inadequate. In February 2010, he claimed on Meet the Press that he was tired of Republican lawmakers using national security issues as political footballs, and making allegations where they did not know the facts.  Brennan was present in the Situation Room in May 2011 when the United States conducted the military operation that killed Osama bin Laden. He called President Obama's decision to go forward with the mission one of the "gutsiest calls of any president in memory." In the aftermath of the operation, Brennan said that the U.S. troops in the raid had been "met with a great deal of resistance," and bin Laden had used a woman as a human shield. CANNOTANSWER
Brennan was present in the Situation Room in May 2011 when the United States conducted the military operation that killed Osama bin Laden.
Hair Like Mine is a 2009 photograph by Pete Souza of a five-year-old child, Jacob Philadelphia, touching the head of then-president of the United States Barack Obama. Philadelphia was visiting Obama with his family and had asked if Obama's hair was similar to his. The image has been described as iconic and has been seen as symbolic of the African-American struggle for civil rights.

Context
The photograph was taken on May 8, 2009 in the Oval Office of the White House by Pete Souza. Souza took the photograph in his official capacity of Chief Official White House Photographer. Philadelphia's family had come to meet Obama as his father, Carlton Philadelphia, a member of the National Security Staff, was leaving the White House after two years working on the National Security Council. Photographs taken as such with the President and the families of departing Executive Branch colleagues were known as 'departure photos'.

Carlton's son, Jacob Philadelphia, said that he had a question for Obama, and said that "I want to know if your hair is like mine". Jacob had initially asked the question so quietly that Obama asked him to repeat it. Obama replied "Why don't you touch it and see for yourself?", and lowered his head, Jacob hesitated and Obama told him to "Touch it, dude!" Obama asked Jacob what he thought and he said that it did feel the same. Souza also said that Jacob had said that "his friends had said his haircut was just like the president's and he wanted to see if it really was...He asked the president if he could touch his head and the president bent over and he touched his head". The ensuing photograph by Souza captures the moment that Obama lowers his head so Jacob could feel his hair.

Carlton's other son, Isaac, asked Obama about the cancellation of production of the F-22 Raptor fighter jet and was told that it was financially unviable. The questions were asked as the family was about to leave Obama; the boys' parents had not known what their children were going to ask him, and Souza himself was surprised at this moment. Souza's surprise is reflected in the composition of the photograph with Jacob Philadelphia's arm obscuring his face, the blurring of his brother Isaac, and in the heads of the boys' parents being cut off by the framing of the image.

Obama subsequently proffered his head to Edwin Caleb, a first grader in 2014 who remarked that he had short hair like his in a visit to Clarence Tinker Elementary School at MacDill Air Force Base.

Impact
Michelle Obama, Obama's wife, said at a subsequent fundraising event that the photograph was the only one that remained permanently on display at the White House with other images being on display periodically. Michelle felt that the image was symbolic of political progress in civil rights for African Americans telling her audience that "I want you to think of that little Black boy in the Oval Office of the White House touching the head of the first Black President".

Julia M. Klein, writing in the Chicago Tribune, described the photograph as reminding "us of the symbolic heft of this breakthrough presidency" as "cogently as photographs of Obama beside the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial". Jackie Calmes writing in The New York Times in 2012 described the popularity of the photo as "tangible evidence" that "Obama remains a potent symbol for blacks, with a deep reservoir of support". Obama's advisor David Axelrod had a framed image of the photograph in his office. Axelrod felt that the photograph showed that the "child could be thinking, 'Maybe I could be here someday'. This can be such a cynical business, and then there are moments like that that just remind you that it's worth it." Philadelphia's father said in 2012 interview with The New York Times that "It's important for black children to see a black man as president. You can believe that any position is possible to achieve if you see a black person in it".

TIME magazine described it as "the most iconic" of all Souza's images of Obama. Souza described the image in a 2017 interview as "kind of a grab shot" but that "it just tells you a lot about him as a person that he would not only be willing to bend down like that but have this little boy touch his head". Obama's interactions with children provided a welcome break from his working day according to Souza.

The photograph was included in Souza's 2017 book of photographs of Obama's presidency, Obama: An Intimate Portrait: The Historic Presidency in Photographs, published by Allen Lane.

See also
Afro-textured hair
Good hair
Natural hair movement

References

2000s photographs
2009 in art
2009 in Washington, D.C.
2009 works
African-American hair
Black people in art
Color photographs
Images of Barack Obama
Images of the White House
Photographs of the United States
Works about children During Barack Obama's tenure as President of the United States from 2009 to 2017, certain Republican members of Congress, as well as Democratic congressman Dennis Kucinich, stated that Obama had engaged in impeachable activity and that he might face attempts to remove him from office. Rationales offered for possible impeachment ranged from Obama allowing people to use bathrooms based on their gender identity, to the 2012 Benghazi attack, to Obama's enforcement of immigration laws, and false claims that he was born outside the United States.

The closest attempt to impeach Obama occurred on December 3, 2013. On this date, the House Judiciary Committee, controlled by Republicans, held a hearing on whether or not to impeach the president.  At the hearing, there were views among Republicans that the president had not done his duty, while simultaneously abusing his executive power. The hearing was attended by Georgetown University law professor Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz who encouraged impeachment claiming it was a good check on what he perceived as "executive lawlessness" from Obama. Impeachment efforts never advanced past this, mainly due to consistent opposition from Speaker of the United States House of Representatives John Boehner who saw impeachment as politically harmful to congressional Republicans, as well as the near-unanimous consensus that impeachment would not lead to Obama's removal in a senate trial rendering such efforts a waste of time. No list of articles of impeachment was ever drawn up and proposed to the Judiciary Committee for Obama. Obama was the first president since Jimmy Carter to not have any articles of impeachment referred against him to the House Judiciary Committee.

Multiple surveys of U.S. public opinion found that a near supermajority of Americans rejected the idea of impeaching Obama, though a bit more than a simple majority of Republicans did support such efforts. For example, CNN found in July 2014 that 57% of Republicans supported impeachment, but in general, 65% of American adults, disagreed with impeachment with only 33% supporting such efforts.

Congressional calls for impeachment 
In October 2010, prior to the elections in which Republicans won control of the House, Jonathan Chait published an article in The New Republic called "Scandal TBD" where he predicted that if Republicans were to win control of the House, and Barack Obama were to win re-election in 2012, the Republicans would try to impeach Obama and use any reason possible as pretext.

Joe Sestak 
In May 2010, Republican Darrell Issa of California stated that the allegation that the White House had offered Pennsylvania Representative Joe Sestak a job to persuade Sestak to drop out of the Pennsylvania Senate primary election against Arlen Specter "is one that everyone from Arlen Spector [sic] to Dick Morris has said is in fact a crime, and could be impeachable". With the possibility of becoming chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in January 2011, Issa said in October 2010 that the committee would not seek to impeach Obama.

Preventing Obama from "pushing his agenda" 
In August 2011, Republican Congressman Michael C. Burgess of Texas agreed with a rally audience member that the impeachment of Obama "needs to happen" in order to prevent Obama from "pushing his agenda". Burgess did not mention any grounds for impeachment.

Obama administration immigration policy  
In June 2012, Senator Jon Kyl mentioned impeachment when discussing the Obama Administration policy on immigration. He said on the Bill Bennett radio show, "if it’s bad enough and if shenanigans [are] involved in it, then of course impeachment is always a possibility. But I don’t think at this point anybody is talking about that".

In August 2013, Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma responded to a questioner in a town hall meeting, who had asserted that Obama was failing to carry out his constitutional responsibilities, by saying that "you have to establish the criteria that would qualify for proceedings against the president... and that's called impeachment". Coburn added, "I don't have the legal background to know if that rises to 'high crimes and misdemeanors', but I think you're getting perilously close". Coburn did not specify what grounds he felt would support impeachment, but NBC News noted that Coburn  "mentioned that he believes Department of Homeland Security officials have told career USCIS employees to 'ignore' background checks for immigrants". Coburn mentioned no evidence that substantiated his belief.

Use of drones
In March 2012, Republican Representative Walter B. Jones introduced H. Con. Res. 107, calling for Congress to hold the sentiment that certain actions of Obama be considered as impeachable offenses, including the CIA's drone program in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The resolution died in the House Judiciary Committee.

Libya intervention 
In March 2011, Democratic House Representative Dennis Kucinich called for Obama's impeachment after Obama authorized air strikes against Libya during the Libyan Civil War.

Benghazi attack 
In May 2013, Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma stated that Obama could be impeached over what he alleged was a White House cover-up after the deadly attack against two United States government facilities in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012. Inhofe said that "of all the great cover-ups in history—the Pentagon papers, Iran-Contra, Watergate, all the rest of them—this ... is going to go down as most egregious cover-up in American history". Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz of Utah also stated in an interview that impeachment was "within the realm of possibilities" with regard to the September 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi, later clarifying that "it's not something I'm seeking" and that "I'm not willing to take that off the table. But that's certainly not what we're striving for." Fox News host Jeanine Pirro called for Obama's impeachment over Benghazi.

The Affordable Care Act 
In 2013, Senator Ted Cruz responded to the question "Why Don’t We Impeach [Obama]?" with "Good question... and I’ll tell you the simplest answer: To successfully impeach a president you need the votes in the U.S. Senate." That year, when asked if Obama had committed impeachable offenses on immigration and health care, Cruz said the implementation of the Affordable Care Act was "lawless", and said of impeachment, "That’s a question for the House ultimately... My responsibility would be to render judgment."

Birtherism 
At a 2013 town hall meeting with constituents, two years after Obama had released his long-form birth certificate to the public, Congressman Blake Farenthold said that Obama should be impeached due to birther conspiracy theories about Obama. Farenthold said that he thinks that "the House is already out of the barn on this, on the whole birth certificate issue."

IRS targeting controversy 
On August 19, 2013, Republican Congressman Kerry Bentivolio stated that if he could write articles of impeachment, "it would be a dream come true". To help in achieving that goal, he retained experts and historians.  During the same interview, Bentivolio called the press "the most corrupt thing in Washington," and said that he was looking to tie the White House to the IRS targeting controversy "as evidence of impeachment ".

Debt ceiling crisis 
During the debt ceiling crisis of 2013, which was the result of Republicans refusing to raise the debt ceiling unless Obama agreed to defund the Affordable Care Act, House Representative Louie Gohmert said it would be an "impeachable offense" of the United States as a result of the crisis.

"President's Constitutional Duty to Faithfully Execute the Laws" 
On December 3, 2013, the House Judiciary committee held a hearing formally titled "The President's Constitutional Duty to Faithfully Execute the Laws", which some participants and observers viewed as an attempt to begin justifying impeachment proceedings. Asked if the hearing was about impeachment, the committee chairman responded that it was not, adding, "I didn't mention impeachment nor did any of the witnesses in response to my questions at the Judiciary Committee hearing." Contrary to his claims however, a witness did mention impeachment rather blatantly. Partisan Georgetown University law professor Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz said, “A check on executive lawlessness is impeachment” as he accused Obama of “claim[ing] the right of the king to essentially stand above the law.”

Prisoner swap 
The convention of the South Dakota Republican Party voted in a 196-176 resolution to call for the impeachment of Obama based on his action to release five detainees from Guantanamo Bay detention camp in order to free Bowe Bergdahl from his Taliban captors. Congressmember Allen West expressed the view that the prisoner exchange that brought the release of Bowe Bergdahl was grounds for impeachment. John Dean, former White House Counsel to Richard Nixon, criticized the movement to impeach Obama as "insanity," arguing that Republican demands for impeachment are grounded in political disagreements rather than actual impeachable offenses. "Partisans promoting and pushing impeachment as a political solution to being out of power seem to forget that what comes around goes around. These people are not conservatives, who by definition seek to protect the system; rather they are radicals who are gaming our constitutional system," he wrote.

Transgender bathroom directive 
In May 2016, the Oklahoma Legislature filed a measure asking the representatives from Oklahoma in the House of Representatives to impeach Obama, the U.S. attorney general, the U.S. secretary of education and any other administration officials involved in the decision to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms corresponding to their gender identity, alleging that these federal officials had exceeded their constitutional authority by issuing a directive to state schools.  The same resolution also "condemns the actions of the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice and the Office for Civil Rights of the United States Department of Education ... as contrary to the values of the citizens of Oklahoma".

Congressional opposition to impeachment 
A number of prominent Republicans rejected calls for impeachment, including House Speaker John Boehner, and Sen. John McCain. McCain said impeachment would be a distraction from the 2014 election, and that if "we regain control of the United States Senate we can be far more effective than an effort to impeach the president, which has no chance of succeeding." Rep. Blake Farenthold said that impeachment would be "an exercise in futility."

Public debate over impeachment demands 
In terms of background, U.S. public opinion widely opposed efforts made to impeach previous Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. CNN Polling Director Keating Holland has stated that their organization found that 69% opposed impeaching President Bush in 2006.

According to a July 2014 YouGov poll, 35% of Americans believed President Obama should be impeached, including 68% of Republicans. Later that month, a CNN survey found that about two thirds of adult Americans disagreed with impeachment efforts. The data showed intense partisan divides, with 57% of Republicans supporting the efforts compared to only 35% of independents and 13% of Democrats.

On July 8, 2014, the former Governor of Alaska and 2008 Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin publicly called for Obama's impeachment for "purposeful dereliction of duty". In a full statement, she said: "It’s time to impeach; and on behalf of American workers and legal immigrants of all backgrounds, we should vehemently oppose any politician on the left or right who would hesitate in voting for articles of impeachment."

Andrew McCarthy of the National Review wrote the book Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case For Obama's Impeachment, which argued that threatening impeachment was a good way to limit executive action by Obama (McCarthy referred to Obama's actions as "the standard dictatorial self-image").

In 2018, conservative radio talk show host Larry Elder said that Obama should have been impeached for withdrawing U.S. military forces from Iraq in 2011 under what Elder said was the "new standard for impeachment in the Trump era."

See also 

Impeachment investigations of United States federal officials
Timeline of the investigation into the 2012 Benghazi attack
United States House of Representatives v. Azar
Impeachment of Bill Clinton
Efforts to impeach Donald Trump
Efforts to impeach George W. Bush
Efforts to impeach Dick Cheney

References

External links 
Meet the Impeachment Crowd: 6 Republicans Who Want Obama Out, a list of six Republicans who voiced their opinions for Obama's impeachment.
IRS and Benghazi Scandals Give Birther, Anti-Immigrant Impeach Obama Groups New Legs, U.S. News & World Report (May 13, 2013), article noting PACs that sought the impeachment of Barack Obama

2010s in the United States
Obama, Barack
Obama administration controversies
Republican Party (United States) Obama: From Promise to Power is a 2007 political biography, written by David Mendell, of Barack Obama from his childhood to the announcement of his candidacy for president of the United States. The book focuses on Obama's fast rise from obscurity to the national stage, portraying it not as an unplanned phenomenon but rather as the result of a carefully crafted and calculated plan by an ambitious man. Mendell, a Chicago Tribune reporter, had covered Obama since the beginning of his campaign for the U.S. Senate in Illinois. The book utilizes both first-hand research (from Mendell's original reporting) and a wide range of interviews with Obama's aides, mentors, political adversaries, and family.

Obama: From Promise to Power was one of the first biographies of the 2008 presidential campaign season, but upon its publication it did not receive the same attention as books about Hillary Clinton, who was initially considered a stronger contender for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination. As a result, Mendell and Obama: From Promise To Power did not receive the same large-scale book tours and press attention as did such Clinton biographies as A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton, by Carl Bernstein, and Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton, by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta, Jr.

John J. Pitney, Jr., of National Review Online termed Obama: From Promise to Power "the single best source of background information on our new president." Calling the book "generally sympathetic to its subject, but … not a hagiography," Pitney praised Mendell for taking note of Obama's faults and "considerable ego," citing in particular the opening of the book, in which Obama confidently states, "I'm LeBron, baby. I can play on this level. I got some game," shortly before speaking at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Tim Russert, host of NBC's Meet the Press, was particularly impressed with Mendell's frank assessments of Obama's flaws and ambition, such as: "What the public has yet to see clearly is his hidden side, his imperious, mercurial, self-righteous, and sometimes prickly nature, each quality exacerbated by the enormous career pressures that he has inflicted upon himself." A WLS-TV review of Obama: From Promise to Power said the book "carries with it a certain oral history-style wholeness," due to the variety of people profiled from Obama's life. The review said Mendell's long history of first-hand news coverage of Obama lent the book "both an insider's perspective and a journalist's shrewd critical eye, and the portrait that he paints of Obama is more comprehensive than any previous treatment of this remarkable man".

In February 2008, Obama: From Promise to Power won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in the Biography/Autobiography category.

References

2007 non-fiction books
Books about Barack Obama
Books about politics of the United States
Current affairs books
NAACP Image Awards
Political books
History books about the United States
HarperCollins books