Politics are personal, I guess.
In some ways I don't want to see his presidency in actuality. I like the simple idea of hope, rather than the gritty and much less unglamorous world of the day-to-day policy. I'm afraid to get bogged down in the 24-hour news cycle and the politics of Washington and realize he is just like every other politician. I like his speeches; they stay like cologne long after their physical presence has passed. He is an orator of beauty, a man who wears simple and sparse like he invented it, a consummate gentleman who loves his wife and children and isn't shy about being the smartest man in the room. And I eat it up. He could feed me mashed potatoes with a slingshot and if he kept talkin' pretty I'd sit in the corner and take it.
What a relief from the past 8 years of jockdom, bravado, truthiness and preconceived decisions. I almost don't quite know how to respond to a Congress, Senate and President all representing (more or less) my basic civic beliefs. It hasn't been this way since before I was legally allowed to vote.
I want Obama to succeed. Badly I want him to succeed. I want the sacred names of American History to contain him. I want WashingtonJeffersonLincolnRooseveltKennedyObama to be a sentence every American school child knows. I want him to appear on the money my nieces and nephews will carry, replacing that bastard Andrew Jackson on the $20, the new face of hope smiling at you every time you withdrawal from an ATM.
But.
Oh But.
I'm steeling myself against this hope, because Gulf of Tonkin and Watergate and Iran Contra and Lewinsky and Haliburton and Blackwater tell me to do so. Because even the Emancipation Proclamation had ulterior motives than just freeing slaves (read: keeping France out of its support of its industrial partner in the South and drumming up support in the North from seriously pissed voters wondering why their kids were coming home in boxes. It essentially made Slavery the issue). Because we have a government that uses the phrase “collateral damage”. Because loving the current America requires a certain level of forgetting America, like agreeing to date a boyfriend that has time and again let you down.
I want to believe that Obama will change the Presidency but I can't help worrying that the Presidency will change Obama.
7 comments:
so so good and EXACTLY what I am thinking. Also, this man has quite a big week ahead of him. He will win or lose me in the next seven days. Unfortunately.
Excellent post.
Blog after blog, post after post,there seems to be an unsettling feeling within Obama supporters? I hear good mixed with "will he pull through".
i.e. Leslie S. says."He will win or lose me in the next seven days."
This should have been thought of before election not after.
The position of governing this great nation truly is daunting to aspire.
My vote was cast to voice my feelings because America system allowed me.
"We the people of these United States..."
Remember to contact your public servants at every opportunity. Don't let 4 years go by and then bash.
Obama will be our President and my prayers are with you and us.Because there are differences.
The problem really boils down to potential.
I believe that what Obama is facing as the new President is the most daunting monster any Commander has seen since FDR came to office in 1928. Crippling dept, job loss, two unpopular wars, a weak dollar, and major problems in almost every social program just to name a few. I believe in Obama’s ability to face these shockwaves of crisis with fortitude and wisdom. I trust he will surround himself with people who will be truthful, who will be experts on the topic at hand and will be allowed to dissent with him. What I am not looking forward to is the political quagmire that comes from the actuality of the office. The late night talk show jokes, the inevitable perception of scandal (be it real or otherwise, every Presidency has at least one), the gaffes that come from relentless news coverage, the reality that politics is, and always will be, politics. That is what I don’t want to face.
I was 19 when I voted in my first Presidential election. It was 2000 and I stood in line with my best friend at an old people’s home in Syracuse, NY. It was so hopeful that night but we all know what happened after that. It was an election of massive voter disenfranchisement, systematic voter fraud and the popular vote of the nation being negated by a single Supreme Court vote. As an introduction to the US political process, it was less than ideal. My vote was cast but it came with the distinct impression that my voice wasn’t heard. How do you keep hoping after that?
But for the first time in 8 years, I feel like the voice of the nation was finally, and resoundingly, heard.
S.Spooner says."How do you keep hoping after that?"
The laws of the land go through election.YOU have a voice as those laws are being made. You must be in contact commissioners,representatives,
congressman and women and every one along the way... Those bashing jokes and late night talk shows only show disrespect towards anyone.There is a bumper sticker that reads "question authority"?
Stop wasting your time listening to them. Use that time wisely by staying on top of positions that mean the most to you.
Speak up not just on blogs and post by emails and phone calls to government.
The Gettysburg Address said so well by Abe Lincolon"government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth".
He was talking to the American people to voice your wishes and desire. Why are folks so fast to bash a public servant yet will not contact them on issues first.
Spooner, first of all, I'll go out with you for Valumtines. WE can get ready to look "SOOOOOOOO Good".
So don't worry about that.
I will be your Plan B if you don't find anybody else.
I know I won't. I am busy with work and don't have time to chase women.
Secondly. "we" (America) are screwed. Things are really really bad. In my life time I can't think of a more inspiring person that has happened to get into politics and have a serious go at office. It works out really nice like that my favorite policitian of my lifetime has come on the scene during the biggest national crisis (cumulative) of my life time.
Dark times call for a dark man. sorry, bad joke. BUT SERIOUSLY, If Obama can't fix this... no one can and I won't think less of him for it. Like you, I want Obama to fix this country in such an astonishing way that Martin Luther Kings words of "not by the color of their skin but by..." is rubbed into the grimey cousin screwing face of every redneck on the planet. But you are right, Obama must remain transcendant of politics. He must inspire americans to do that. That d!ck wad that swore him in I think threw his game off a bit... his speech was not quite what Obama is capable of. No matter, the rubber meets the road when the music stops tomorrow morning.
amen, sister. my thoughts exactly.
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