Obama is full of it. Hope, I mean.

Emily Dickinson famously wrote, "hope is the thing with feathers." It's a beautiful homily, three stanzas of metaphors that reveal truths about the human heart and the indomitable nature of the spirit. It also mostly rhymes. Barack Obama, our next likely president -- disregarding morbid Doris Lessing-esque poo-pooers, or a jittery electorate overcome with a necrophilic hunger only a bespotted failed war "hero" can slake -- is full of it. Hope, I mean. He's audacious with the stuff. This, to my mind, is noble, uplifting, and about as useful in a leader as the "p" in the word "receipt." Hope does not get things done, in a political era where money talks and ideology sits in a corner until it understands what it's done wrong. Hope has never accomplished anything. When Kennedy promised to put a man on the moon, that wasn't just about hope. Kennedy understood that trumping the Russians in the space-race was vital to a nation chilled to the bone with cold war. He understood that putting a man on the moon was the ultimate expression of a heavenly mandate for our nation under god. He was also tired of banging Barbra Eden, and when his buddy Sherwood Schwartz slipped him a copy of the pilot script for I dream of Jeannie, Kennedy knew that without the Astronaut angle, the show didn't have a hook, and that Eden would pester him for the rest of his life. (Yeah, I know, but hindsight is 20/20). It takes more than hope, is all I'm saying.

It's not that I don't think Obama's eminently qualified. He seems like a nice guy. Genuine. Brilliant. Principled. The kind of guy you'd want running the greatest nation on earth. But Denmark already has a leader.

My worry is that Obama, who appeals to the best of our nature, and to the transformative power of government, lives in a fantasy world, disconnected from the peccant realities of what it takes to get things done in Washington. The median age in the house and the senate is around 60. The racial makeup of the house is around 90 percent white; in the senate, around 99 percent. I'm not counting Hispanics in this calculus, because a) Obama hasn't exactly mamboed away with the Latino vote, and b) I can research every last niggling bicameral demographic, or I can watch Hell's Kitchen: I can't do both. As to why I haven't counted Asians or other minorities, see B.

So this old, white, mostly male body of representatives, as far as I can tell, by -- oh, I don't know, their voting records over the last twenty years -- is not exactly clamoring for "change." They like things the way they are. War. Kids left behind. Twelve mile per gallon Escalades with dubs. Leaving aside the war, which is always good for a chuckle -- especially when slapping down your passport in any other nation on earth save Dubai -- very little can get accomplished inside the beltway without the aid and abetment of special interest groups, lobbyists, and heavy, cream-based sauces from Galileo restaurant on M street. Does anyone really believe that after a couple hundred years, the entrenched quo wants anything other than the status? Things are the way they are, and the way they have been, because that's how things are supposed to be. Politics does not attract the best and the brightest. It attracts the best and brightest megalomaniacs three of our finest universities can pump out.

Some good can come from government, if one knows how to play the angles. Lyndon Johnson was slimier than a greased weasel, but managed to sign the civil rights act of 1964 into law, albeit with the wistful lament, "we [white democrats] have lost the south for a generation," which for some reason he considered a bad thing. But Johnson's legacy wasn't all gravy. This is the same president who signed the Public Television Act of 1967, which guaranteed that radio could no longer be considered the most boring media outlet. Johnson knew how to double-deal, how to work both sides of the aisle. Bill Clinton was masterful at this. He managed to enact draconian welfare reforms, pleasing white, ex-Reagan democrats (an oxymoron on par with "lipstick lesbians") who were incensed that poor, often black families were squandering taxpayer's money on the pre-sweetened Kool-Aid, rather than the more economical kind where you have to add the sugar later. Clinton also adopted Bush the elder's race-baiting by equating Sister Souljah with David Duke, when her only crime was being a really, really crappy rapper. But that's the kind of maneuvering it takes to win, and to be an effective leader. You don't hear mafia Dons walking up to the Capo del Tutti Capo and announcing, "we're gonna have a whole new mafia!" Well, Paul Castellano tried it in 1985 at Sparks Steakhouse, but it ended badly.

Me, I want my leaders the way nature intended: Corrupt. Duplicitous. Slick. This however should in no way be taken as my ex post facto endorsement of Hillary Clinton.

Can Obama do the beltway hustle? With a 30 seat democratic majority in the house of representatives, and a dead split in the senate, it's possible that he could affect real change. Bipartisan change. But oh the deals. He'll have to make them. But how will he be able to satisfy his rabid fan, er, voting base, when he necessarily dances with the devil in the pale moonlight? Will all his talk of change stall into a bipartisan vortex? Will he, in other words, become just another politician? Perhaps one man can inspire the senate and the house to abandon the hoary squabbling and vested interests that have defined it for the last couple hundred years. I, for one, would love to see it, and Obama has my vote. (Well, not my actual vote, because at the end of the day, what with elections decided not by votes but by hanging chads, and wars which don't require congressional approval, and a taxpaying base too cheap to pay for the -- gasp! -- socialist necessity of universal health care, and a population too thick to get the incongruity of nonsensical statements like "support the troops, but not the war, " I think I'll just sit this one out.)

I'm -- paraphrasing Woody Allen's paraphrasing of Emily Dickinson -- "without feathers." Although I do need the eggs.

Comments

[LLJ]

Obama"s skillfully exploitation of the word "change""blending 3 different meanings into one sound-bitey concept"convinces me that he does have the political savvy that you doubt.

First, he"s throwing the word "change" around as nostalgia bait to the voters. Pop culture gauges tell us that Americans are as un-revolutionary as we"ve been since the 50"s, uninterested in action beyond texting to vote in our favorite idol (speaking of nostalgia, America Bandstand revisited, anyone?) We"re beyond the earnestness required for revolution"but it sure is nice to remember how we used to care, and to feel smug that those former battles made us so darn great.

So, if Obama can use the word "change" simply to inspire enough of us to text in our vote for him, then his rhetoric worked"for him and for us.

The second "change" Obama promises, changing the culture of Washington, doesn"t matter. You"re right, politics can"t change"and why should it as long as politicians get done what we want.

The third "change" is policy, the change that actually matters. You"re right to doubt Obama"s executive abilities only insofar as there"s not enough record to know for sure. I disagree that we should view his "Hope/Change" campaign rhetoric"empty as it is"as a sign of Obama"s flightiness or inability to lead. On the contrary, it, and his campaign success (including winning over staunch Clintonians), shows his ability to read what people want and feed it to them"which is exactly what makes good politicking.

[David Matthews - Huffpost Blogger]

In many ways, I completely agree with you. It's not Obama's political savvy I'm doubting; it's his ability, as someone who's cast himself as a breath of fresh air reformer, to convince the washington establishment that their modes of governance are outdated. I think it requires a level of naivete bordering on the delusional to suppose that our members of congress (elected by the people, after all) have all been as vaguely corrupted, deadlocked, and inefficient as they have been, simply because of a lack of upright executive leadership. The notion that "there's a new sheriff in town" will reform our government seems silly to me...but what do I know? Perhaps our bicameral representatives will reach across the aisles for the good of the nation rather than the good of their parties, all due to Obama's inspiring visions. I'm not slamming Obama, I'm slamming the idea that "hope" is a platform. Hope gets people to the polls, but it doesn't get legislation passed. "Change may be desired by the (democratic at least) electorate, but often the will of the people is ignored for reasons beyond our ken. If this "from the ground up" quiet revolution were actually an engine for change, there'd be two hydrogen cars in every garage, we'd all have scads of health insurance, and public schools would be funded like the military industrial complex. Not. Going. To. Happen. But how I wish it would. (And just to preempt ya, voting--like wishing--won't make it so).

[LanceJetson]

The "hopeful masses" did not just sit by the last five years. Take off your blinders David. There has been plenty of hell-raising over a criminal administration and a complicit congress. And hopefully -excuse the word -- it is coming to fruition. Are you saying you'd rather have despair than hope? That it's politics as normal and we have to get used to it? So instead of offering a solution, such as...I don't know...maybe vote out the corrupt congress members, petition for actual representation by demographics, start movements at the local level...etc. Instead you offer NO HOPE and NO VOTE? There are plenty of examples of our country changing direction (No examples necessary...just think for a second...) And Obama seems to be a bellwether of such a change that is growing with Americans disgust at the mendacity of politicians.If you're refusing to vote than your opinion has no weight with the people who do.

[Triciann]

David you are welcome to sit this one out. You would be of no use to the folks who do have hope, vision and the guts to stand up for what they know is right. Takes courage and you don't appear to have it. I'm a 61 year old white woman and I'm fed up with your type of attitude. People are ready for a peaceful "revolution". This nation was born out of a revolution so the idea is not new but even peaceful revolutions require bravery. There are always those who will stand on the side-lines and then think nothing of enjoying the rewards. You're welcome, David.

[David Matthews - Huffpost Blogger]

First, thanks for the comments! And I'm super-stoked that you have hope. Truly. And I'd buy the notion that "people are ready for a peaceful 'revolution'" if these same hopeful masses hadn't sat idly by for the last 5 years while 200,000 innocent iraqis, and 5,000 us troops (should i count the injured?) were killed. As as 61 year-old, you must be aware that it was protesting kids in the street getting their skulls split in the 60's, coupled with a media that was allowed to broadcast images of, oh, i don't know--war on our TV's that helped generate real change. Change in the form of Richard M. Nixon. Now, exactly where are these "gutsy" individuals you speak of today? The electorate is not made of a bunch of brave individuals eager for change. If it were, Dennis Kucinich would be president. Not that I'd vote for him either--too short.

[MoeB]

Hunh? Not sure what you are getting at here. So are you saying that Obama SHOULD be deceitful, dirty, play both sides of the field, and be corrupt? That in order to be an effective leader, you HAVE to be these things? If this is true (and I don't think it is), it is because WE, the voters, have allowed this for so long! You basically said the reason Clinton was great was because he pulled the wool over our eyes by being two-faced. So this is what we should demand from our politicians?

Then you say that Obama has your "vote", but he doesn't have your "actual vote". Whuuuuddd??? Your piece is all over the place. You're skeptical of how politics is currently played. You're skeptical of how Obama can/will change the game of politics. You'd love to see Obama change the game so to speak, yet you won't vote for the change you SAY you want to see. Very confusing piece.