Obama Without Glamour

It's a rough month in Washington. We're coming up to Thanksgiving and it's a push to find something to be thankful for. A meaningful health-care bill might just do it, as might a way ahead in Afghanistan, or the closing of Guantanamo Bay.

Failing these things, what else would go well with turkey and pumpkin pie? The Obamas' Olympic campaign can be seen as an attempt to find a tangible victory for America to focus on. It failed. Jobs, of course, are always a popular family topic, but it's going to take a while for the economic stimulus to kick in. So how 'bout simply saying a muted but sincere 'Thank you, God' for an honest and smart president who's trying to move ahead by untangling the 'fubar' mess left by the crooks, dummies and wackos who ruled Washington for eight long years.

America's honeymoon with the president is apparently over. The resistance to health-care reform by disingenuous Democrats with vested interests works in combination with Republican efforts to discredit Obama and label him a 'weak leader' so the momentum of his election victory is stalling. Apparently, Gen. Stanley McChrystal understands this. The general's cynical attempt to manipulate the outcome of Obama's Afghanistan policy by leaking his report to the media is based on a clear assessment that McChrystal's Commander-in-Chief is now very vulnerable.

Surrounded by so many ruthless s.o.b.'s, newbie Obama needs to steer a careful course through this complex passage where so many rocks meet the pounding surf. A wrong move in the wars, the economy, or in health-care will have disastrous consequences that will rattle down the coming decades like a tin can bouncing down a very long stairwell.

No one doubts Obama's ability or sincerity. Unlike the lesser Bush, Dick Cheney or Sarah Palin, Obama is not openly mocked on Saturday Night Live. But they have now begun to satirize him as a do-nothing president.

Apparently, Obama's push to pass health-care reforms before the recess was a prescient appreciation of American political reality. Soon enough, as Shakespeare observed, the blush goes off any rose. Everything "holds in perfection but a single moment." Obama needs a clear win on something very soon in order to re-energize Americans and refocus them for the difficult and varied tasks that lie ahead during the next three years of what may prove to be America's most difficult presidency.

Meanwhile, Americans themselves need to remember why they elected this man, an exceptional candidate for very troubled times, a man who is not content to do 'the easy thing'. Around the dinner table, remind yourselves how hard and how various are the tasks set before him and what the consequences are if he fails.

There are plenty of volunteers, but who else could do the job?

 

 

Comments

[gilesslade]

It's early morning on Friday, October 9th Pacific time here on the west coast.

I've just read that Obama has been awarded the Noble Peace Prize. Of course, I think it's a wonderful and timely thing.

Previous winners like Lec Walesa are already saying 'he doesn't deserve it. Let's wait and see what he does.' Others like Nicolas Sarkozy and Desmond Tutu say this will facilitate Obama's international diplomatic efforts. I agree.

I also think the award expresses the world's hope for lasting and meaningful peace in many regions, while providing necessary for Obama and an America that has finally 'righted itself' morally after 8 years of disingenuous (hypocritical, insincere) rule by both George W. Bush and 'Big Dick' Cheney. I hope the President's American detractors look at this. The world sees in this man something you do not. But America can rely on the combined strength of its neighbors with this man at the helm.

The Copenhagen conference on climate change in December especially is a critical juncture for the future of humanity. America will have to provide strong leadership at this 'eleventh hour' (some say it's already one-thirty and too late). Obama is now in position to take his best shot. God speed.

[hsr0601]

I think military increase in Afghanistan will end up with irreversible tragedy.

[northernwoman]

Thank you for this article. I truly wish people would understand the enormous interdependence of everything that is going on these days and the need for a truly wholistic approach to the issues that face all of us (yeah, Canadians too). Your President is a man who understands the compexity that faces him, your nation and the rest of the world. He told you it would be hard, that it would take time and that he needed all of you. I hope he finds a "win" as you say, but in the meantime please be thankful you have a thoughtful, intellegent and good man to lead your country. I wish the seemingly witless right wing would either help or get out of the way. These are not times for simple minds and there are no simple solutions.
Our Thanksgiving is next weekend and I for one am grateful for a cool head at your Whitehouse. It's an interdependent world.