The Messiah is coming. It will be a glorious day... no more will mankind suffer war, hunger or want... He will be loved by all.
Until He cannot live up to everything expected of Him after January 20th.
I jest. But only just. Barack Obama's inauguration is likely the most anticipated swearing in of a U.S. President in over a century, and possibly two. More than Reagan, more than either Roosevelt, and I would argue even more then Kennedy. I doubt there has been as much public excitement over a new president since Andrew Jackson became our seventh President of the United States. Kennedy barely won over Nixon... Reagan was popular but distrusted... Lincoln's election precipitated the secession of South Carolina. We have not seen a phenomenon like this before.
Living in Washington D.C. gives me a unique perspective on the excitement - two million people are estimated to be coming downtown. As many as five million may come into the area. The reason only two million ... let me say that again... ONLY... TWO... MILLION... will be downtown because that is the MAXIMUM the DC Metro and 50,000 charter buses coming into the city will be able to carry. There is no precedent for this type of crowd. Period.
For the record, I plan on staying in my house for four straight days.
Also for the record, I am very proud Obama will be our President. I have closely followed his cabinet picks, and agree with other writers on this blog that his choices have been judicious and non-partisan. His choices are well-qualified, pragmatic and are not ideologues. As a group they are not neo-cons, liberals, greens, progressives... they are reflective of Obama's intention to surround himself with people with whom he may disagree. Yet by his actions, he has demonstrated a belief that no single group holds a monopoly on the truth - or good ideas. Yet these same picks will make Obama's honeymoon with his most fervent supporters is likely to be short. And hardly sweet.
Obama's problems will not stem from an inability to meet campaign promises. He never said anything like "Read my lips. No new taxes." In fact, Obama made few concrete or quantifiable promises on the campaign trail... his one promise to remove most "combat" troops from Iraq within 16 months will be possible only because the surge he opposed has been so successful. (Of note, the architects of that surge will be working for Obama - Bob Gates as Secretary of Defense and General David Petraeus as Commander, US Central Command) No, Obama's problem will not be with anything he promised, or even said. His problem will be with what he did NOT say, but what has been projected upon him.
He will champion Gay rights.
The United States will become the world leader in fighting climate change.
We will ratify the Kyoto accord.
We will intervene in Sudan. (which is different from Iraq how?)
The UAW will be able to renegotiate the GM/Chrysler bailout provisions.
He will oppose offshore drilling.
He will restore affirmative action.
Palestine will achieve statehood.
He will raise taxes on the "rich" and lower taxes for the "middle class."
He will end the "war" in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Guantanamo Bay will be closed (as a prison for "enemy combatants")
Etc, etc, etc.
More likely, he will compromise and earn the enmity of the true believers who will feel personally betrayed.
Obama was elected on a mantra of "Change we can believe in" and "Yes we can." But I didn't vote for Obama because of the empty rhetoric. I voted for him because I saw an intelligent man who I thought would make informed decisions as President, and not a "decider" who would go on instinct. Obama has the chance - and intellectual acumen - to be a great President. But to become so, he will need to be President for all Americans. Perhaps that is the greatest lesson he can learn from George W. Bush.
Bush Jr. was elected as a "compassionate conservative" and a bipartisan "uniter," but he governed as a neo-con and social conservative, eschewing cooperation with Democrats, who were frequently labeled un-patriotic and God-hating baby-killers. (Thank you for your contribution to American political discourse Ms. Coulter). The result - not coincidentally - is the lowest approval rating in the history of such ratings. Bush has so poisoned his relations with Democrats, moderates and our international allies that the pragmatic and intelligence policies his administration has attempted to carry out in the post-Rumsfield, Feith, Wolfowitz and Bolton era have been ignored and even pilloried only because they have been promoted by Bush. The change in policy in Iraq, the massive AIDS prevention efforts and aid to Africa, the diplomatic coordination of policy on Iran and North Korea have all received no credit.
Obama would be wise to remember this example. And we all would be wise to remember he is not the messiah. He cannot solve all our problems for us, will not bring universal prosperity, and may not even be able to fulfill some of his most important goals. But in the end, he may bring us real change we can believe in - an administration that determines policy based on merits and not hunches. And we would all be wise to give him that chance.
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6 comments:
Excellent article. It should be evident from my prior article--though it criticized a decision made by Obama from what would be characterized by some as a leftist position-- that I agree with you. I think that Obama is a very intelligent man who, through his early exposure to many different cultures, developed a pragmatic outlook early in life, and I think that will serve him and the country well. I believe that his cabinet choices have been excellent overall.
He will face criticism--already has--when he makes pragmatic policy decisions, because they will not be in line with a specific ideology (unless you can call just making good decisions an ideology). I just hope he gets to serve two terms, because I think the country needs it in a cleansing sense.
By the way, the true successor of the GWB "decider" and "compassionate [but intolerant and stubborn] conservative" mantle? The answer is obvious. Sarah Palin. I thought things really hit bottom when W became our president, but if there is ever a President Palin, I will weep for our country.
I think you're dismissive of BOH's supporters, and I resent that. We don't look at BOH as some kind of religious leader, but the return of intelligence and the right values to the executive branch. I don't think it's fair to criticize the very people who put BOH in the White House in the first place unless and until we "worshippers" start acting like W's supporters did the last 8 years.
Out of Iraq -
I think you missed the point of what I wrote. I think in many ways we are in violent agreement - I agree that Obama coming into the White House represents a sea change in leadership to someone who is both intelligent and is intellectually curious. I do not believe George Bush was dumb - you cannot win nor hold the presidency and be entirely stupid. I do believe he was not intellectually curious, and was loathe to review a decision for faults once it was made.
The entire point of my article is I am very much concerned Obama will not be given a chance to succeed because those who have put so many hopes into his assumption of the presidency will turn on him when he does not bow to their every whim, but acts pragmatically.
I am very excited about Obama's Presidency - I think he has the greatest potential to do great things of any president in modern history. But he will have to make trade offs, no matter what he does. It is promising he does not appear to have an agenda - as W did - in the people he has appointed. While I do not necessarily like them all (Hillary Clinton being at the top of the list) I can not fault him for appointing people who are not qualified to do the jobs to which they have been appointed.
However, I will admit your moniker intrigues me - while I am no fan of staying in Iraq any longer than we need to, I am also concerned with leaving precipitously. I say this as someone who has been there. If we leave "now," we only risk snatching defeat from the jaws of victory (however bittersweet)... But that is another post...
GLM
My moniker relates to the fact that we waged an unjustified war-- unless justified on ideological grounds (neoconservatism), which I reject, along with the majority of the country. Nothing we do can change the fact that we-- and even though I strenuously opposed the war from the beginning, as an American, I am condemned to say "we"-- waged an unjust and immoral war. What "victory" are we aiming for? Fixing the crapbag that we created? I will acknowledge there is some value in effecting that result but not enough to justify the expense in lives and money. We should not leave "now," we should have left in the metaphorical "yesterday." I have decided to change my moniker as a result.
-- Out of Iraq Yesterday
Out of Iraq Yesterday:
While I strongly sympathize with your position, having been very, very skeptical of the invasion of Iraq from the beginning, I cannot agree with your main point. You reference the "moral" decision of the invasion of Iraq. Would it not be heinously immmoral for us to issue a blanket "mea culpa" and withdraw precipitously, plunging the country we destabilized into bloody civil war? Where does that rate on the moral scales?
I agree that our presence in Iraq must come to an end, and come to an end soon. We have lost enough lives and money--and so have the Iraqis, for that matter. But we need to at least make an effort to leave a reasonably stable situation there.
You would no doubt agree with the statement that our moral authority as a country in the world community was mortally wounded when we invaded Iraq; what would happen to it if we threw the country into chaos by a hasty exit?
I think you should change your moniker to "Out of Iraq Soon."
Out of Iraq Yesterday -
I should perhaps clarify my definition of "victory" in Iraq - not defeat. That's it. Unfortunately, we cannot hope for more. We will certainly not see the dreamed of and much heralded Western-style democracy in the heart of the middle east. I would settle for an Iraq with at least a somewhat-representative government that is not entirely hostile to the United States - which may be the best we can hope for.
The problem most people fail - or refuse - to recognize, is that we are in Iraq now essentially because major issues from the first Gulf War were not resolved. We were in a situation which could not be maintained indefinitely. Combat operations did not technically "begin" on March 20th 2003... more correctly, combat operations did not end on February 28th 1991. Just because it was not covered in the press does not mean ordnance was not falling on Iraq over that entire period.
Was our invasion the right answer? I don't think so. I think the right answer would have been to not have stopped in 1991 and demanded unconditional surrender then, when the world was with us. Our current situation is the result of 12 years of untenable policies and decisions.
Finally, the aftermath of the invasion did not have to turn out the way it did. For that - and the wanton destruction that was unleashed - I blame the ideologues who were in power at the time: Rumsfield, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith (Rummy's undersecdef for intel - created b/c he wasn't getting the answers he wanted from the intel community...), among others. We were our own worst enemies during the initial phases of the occupation, instilling incompetent administrators (L Paul Bremer) and allowing inexperienced political hacks into Iraq to serve in reconstruction positions. It could have gone much differently...for a good read on just how much we screwed things up for ourselves, check out Thomas Ricks' "Fiasco."
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