For a long time, my boyfriend identified as an anarchist. For a brief time, he believed in collapsitarianism. He has never believed that Obama would be a good president. This is perhaps the only point of contention in our relationship, and it isn't particularly contentious, as neither of us sees any merit in arguing over our personal stance on a man we have never met.
I support Obama. During the 2008 elections, when total economic collapse seemed frighteningly possible and Sarah Palin might have been our next Vice President, my support had a sort of grim desperation to it. I believed in Obama, but I was braced for the alternative; deep down, I was preparing to lose. Then we won. I went to a school of 600 students, 98% Democrat/Other, 0% Palin supporters, 100% cynical, jaded hipsters, hippies, and intellectuals, breath held and fingers crossed. 10 minutes after the preliminary electoral results, half my campus sang "God Bless America" outside the Student Center. It was like a miracle.
Yesterday, I watched Jon Stewart. Topic of the day; State of the Union Address. It's been two years since, with high hopes and great expectations, we inaugurated the 44th President. I don't really watch the news, or read the paper, and I'm not very well informed about National or Global affairs, so I admit that I had only the vaguest of outlines of what has happened in our country these last two years. How's the country doing, these days? Well, according to Obama, as interpreted by Jon Stewart, not that great. And although the address was interesting, and Stewart entertaining, what piqued my interest was his guest on the show. Jonathan Alter is the author of The Promise: President Obama, Year One. Alter paints an interesting behind the scenes portrait of the decisions Obama was a part of and pushed through in his first year, and boldly stated that he had "accomplished more, in terms of his record, than any president since Lyndon B. Johnson." Jon Stewart made, obviously, a wry remark about quantity vs. quality of those decisions, and that got me thinking.
I looked around the web a little, looking for things that Obama's done had a hand in accomplishing, and noticed that most of the lists weren't very favorable. Most of what I found was on personal blogs, so of course there's a prejudice, but there was a repetitive formula of "he promised x, we expected y, and instead of delivering z, gave us Q.
This is where the opening paragraph is relevant. My boyfriend is the person who would point to these things and say, Not a good president, QED. I am the person who argues that he came into office under a tremendous amount of pressure, in an impossible situation, that he has had to contend with surprising opposition even when making compromises, and he's just halfway through his first term. I make excuses. I'm having some trouble being that person today.
I'm not sure Obama is really a good President. I hope that he's trying to be a good President, I hope that he does succeed in his goals and I hope that he does prove himself to be one of the greatest Presidents in our history. But hope isn't enough.
When Gene Robinson gave his prayer the day before the inauguration, he said something I considered insightful, and looking back now, mildly prophetic. He implored the American people, and perhaps just people, not to make him into the Messiah; he asked God, essentially, to allow us to see him as a man, and remember than men are flawed. Obama went into office a colossus, larger than life, with all our hope settled firmly on his shoulders. Those hopes have not shrunk, but the colossus has revealed himself to be not much bigger we are.
I don't have a conclusion to this observation. I find myself wondering if the man we made a legend, is really just a myth. I wonder what happened to the shouts of "Yes We Can"; to the spontaneous peals of "The Star Spangled Banner"; to the Democratic majority; to withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan; to reforming healthcare; to change? I wonder if we can stand behind a man when we're no longer in his shadow. I wonder if anyone is willing to try.
Thought of the Day: I am.
Isha
