Hope, Hype, and the Many Faces of Barack Obama
There's something about him -- the way he speaks, the way he carries himself, the inexorable charisma he exudes when addressing a distinguished gathering. You find yourself drawn to Barack Obama, almost reluctantly, as if against your will. And in your state of enthrallment, your heart flutters -- like a lovesick adolescent, you can't help but wonder if maybe she likes you too. And as you dreamily listen to his words, you can't help but hope beyond hope that he's on your side.
For those of us who came of age during the era of Bush II ("Is our children learning?"), Pres. Obama is a breath of fresh air, if only due to his eloquence in speech and familiarity with the English language. But even his policies seem refreshing at times.
Last Wednesday, in his first address to the United Nations General Assembly, he emphasized the shared destiny of mankind, using words like "together", "cooperation", "collective", and "interdependence" a combined total of 32 times.
Even his critics were in awe. Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi fawned as he expressed his joy and pride in "our son of the African lands." "This is completely different from anything we have ever heard from a US leader before," he exclaimed. But he appeared to appreciate the inherent limitations of one man in changing the course of an obstinate nation. After all, "who can guarantee how America will be governed after Obama?"
In his June speech in Cairo, Mr. Obama had recognized the significance of the Palestinian conflict in shaping global perceptions of the United States. At the UN, he boldly reiterates that "America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements." This was consistent with his earlier declarations that "settlements have to be stopped in order for us to move forward." Thus, one finds it perplexing when in the next line, he calls for negotiations to be relaunched without preconditions. Apparently, the president's determination on the issue had weakened in the face of continued stonewalling by the Israeli government.
The president then presents his pillar of the "pursuit of peace" and declares that "the murder of innocent men, women, and children will never be tolerated." His words are particularly ironic given his vehement rejection of the Goldstone report on the Gaza conflict released just eight days earlier. As part of the official UN fact-finding mission, Justice Richard Goldstone concludes that the bombing was a "disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population." Human Rights Watch had predicted that the US response to the report would "put to the test" the Obama administration's devotion to human rights in the Middle East. (Unfortunately, we seem to have failed, with Ambassador Susan Rice toeing the official Israeli line, rejecting the report as "unbalanced, one-sided and...unacceptable.")
Pres. Obama's foremost "fundamental pillar for the future" is nuclear nonproliferation. It is this very "pillar" that enables him to threaten violent action against Iran and North Korea. In fact, recent media reports suggest that the administration will demand inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities within weeks.
However, recent disclosures about the illicit nuclear program of another rogue Middle Eastern state have prompted accusations of double standards. On Sept. 18th, the International Atomic Energy Agency voted to "urge Israel to allow nuclear inspectors." It turns out that Israel has one of the world's largest nuclear arsenals - as many as 400 warheads - and is rapidly moving to enhance the range of its strike capabilities." The American delegate rejected the resolution for singling out one country, while the Israeli representative said that he "deplored" the resolution and pledged that "Israel will not cooperate in any matter."
An IAEA spokesman issued the following angry response:
Nations that refuse to live up to their obligations must face consequences...This is not about singling out individual nations...a world in which IAEA inspections are avoided and the United Nations' demands are ignored will leave all people less safe and all nations less secure...The world must stand together to demonstrate that international law is not an empty promise and that treaties will be enforced. We must insist that the future does not belong to fear.
Actually, that wasn't an IAEA spokesman. That was Barack Obama in his speech to the UN.
(In the president's defense, perhaps he's following a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy when it comes to Israeli weapons of mass destruction.)
Pres. Obama is a powerful and charismatic figure. Many young people may be content with flowery rhetoric even if the accompanying policies are inconsistent and indefensible. We will fondly remember the mist in our eyes when we realized our nation's potential to be a force for good and not evil in the world.
But we will always wonder why that potential was never actualized.
And then there's the war in Afghanistan, which went virtually unaddressed in the president's speech. He has referred to it a "war of necessity", and, in an editorial last Thursday, the New York Times called it "Obama's War." John Mayer memorably sang in 2006 about "waiting on the world to change" so that we could bring our neighbors home from war. How much longer must we wait?
Pres. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has often been dismissed as a "class clown" by his more refined counterparts. He began his address on Thursday with levity, giving shout-outs to his favorite heads of state on the UN floor, with a special emphasis on the enigmatic "Lula" of Brazil.
But he voiced the concerns of untold millions when he marveled at the disconnect between Mr. Obama's speeches and his policies. "Are there two Obamas?" he wondered.
In the end, though, even he has no choice but to submit to the aura of hope.
"Let us hope the Obama we heard yesterday will prevail," he concludes. "That's what the world needs. The world is calling for that Obama to prevail."
So are we, Mr. Chavez. So are we.
[The entire collection of addresses at the 2009 UN General Debate is available at the General Assembly website. The translation of Mr. Qaddafi's speech has been widely criticized for its poor quality; we were unable to find an English-language transcript of Mr. Chavez's address available online.]
Malou Innocent: Dear President Obama: It Will Take True Leadership to Get Us Out of Afghanistan
The administration is still stuck at a crossroads: either send more troops to protect the villages of Afghanistan from the Taliban or stay at present levels (or decrease U.S. troop commitments) to go after al Qaeda cells in Pakistan.
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Thus far I've been disappointed with the current administration. "hope", "change", what does any of it mean without action? I suspected during the election that this junior senator from Illinois lacked the experience to be an effectual president. But the backers like George Soros and the mainstream media on his side how could he lose. I know I'm not alone in my disappointment. Even SNL is pointing out the mans obvious falure to deliver any real change, and he's in bed with lobbiest like GE, contrary to what he promised when campaigning.
Just words as we suspected- and words written by his speechwriter and David Axelrod- All we're left with is hope- sigh--
When we will ever get back to a reality based universe? I thought that was what we were voting on last time- obviously money for marketing and advertising wins the American Idol election.
Why don't we just skip the pomp and circumstance and go right to the call in model- Certainly would be as democratic (perhaps more so) then the caucus system.
. . . Continuation
When the last Jew dies, the synagogues and religious artifacts and books that were the property of what was once probably the wealthiest Jewish community on the Mediterranean will go to the Egyptian government — not to any of the numberless descendants of Egyptian Jews.
It is strange that the president of the United States, a man so versed in history and so committed to the truth, should have omitted mentioning the Jews of Egypt. He either forgot, or just did not know, or just thought it was not expedient or appropriate for this venue. But for him to speak in Cairo of a shared effort “to find common ground ... and to respect the dignity of all human beings” without mentioning the Jewish people who were expelled would be like his speaking to the residents of Berlin about the future of Germany and forgetting to mention a small detail called World War II.
Similarly, the writer, who studied at Egypt's Al Azhar University, could also have mentioned the Jews expelled from Egypt, But he chose not to do so.
For all the president’s talk of “a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world” and shared “principles of justice and progress,” neither he nor anyone around him, and certainly no one in the audience, bothered to notice one small detail missing from the speech.
The president never said a word about the 800,000 or so Jews born in the Middle East who fled the Arab and Muslim world or who were summarily expelled for being Jewish in the 20th century. With all his references to the history of Islam and to its (questionable) “proud tradition of tolerance” of other faiths, Mr. Obama never said anything about those Jews whose ancestors had been living in Arab lands long before the advent of Islam, but were its first victims once rampant nationalism swept over the Arab world.
Nor did he bother to mention that with this flight and expulsion, Jewish assets were — let us call it by its proper name — looted. Mr. Obama never mentioned the belongings Jews still own in Egypt but will never recover -- their houses, their factories, their lives in Egypt, their friends, their books, their cars, and their bicycles.
Continued . . .
Are all Presidents judge on the first few months of their presidency or is this something reserved for only President Obama
Maybe after the bumbling of Mr Bush we want more from Mr Obama than he can give at this time. He has to wrestle power away from the government that Bush put in place over an 8 year span and that takes more that 9 months. There are 3500+/- appointments that have to be made and until they are the Bush people are still running the government.
that explains some but he is not even pretending to mouth the intentions that he promised in the election..
He said he wouldn’t hire lobbyists. All he’s done is hire high power lobbyists at every level of government. And he has handed the country over to the oligarchs, the international bankers, to loot the nation, according to Bloomer Financial, $9.7 trillion. He has lied about leaving Iraq. He said that he would take the troops out immediately, now he is saying 16 to 23 months he is going to keep them there. He has increased the troops by 30 thousand, doubling them in Afghanistan. He is bombing Pakistan. Barack Obama promised that he would only raise taxes on those making over a quarter million dollars a year. He has now announced in the Wall Street Journal, he is going to change all the loop holes to tax all Americans, taking away our waivers we have for homes, taking away the exemptions. The lies are incredible. Everything Obama has said has been a lie.
Are there two Obamas? Boy, are there ever! At least there *were* two Obamas...b
Next time we will throw our support behind a candidate with substance, whether he's a dreamboat or not. Whatever his faults, Bill Richardson at least pledged to remove all troops from Iraq immediately upon entering office (unlike Obama, Edwards, and Hillary Clinton). Richardson should have been our candidate.
Everyday I'm sitting in dread, waiting, hoping that Obama will back the strong public option that the progressives are backing. It makes so much sense medicare plus five. Anyone who reads any newspapers or watches any T.V. can see how much people are hurting because of the lack of vision, guts, intelligence and just plain bullheadedness to do the right thing. The thing that every other country has done years ago-- provide its citizens with affordable, universal health care. And every day that passes and I don't hear a progressive word from Obama or his staff (I puked when I heard Rahb Emmanuel say in a matter-of-fact way that we wouldn't get a public option.) my dread grows.
A thought occurred to me today. Do you think we fell in love with Obama because unconsiously he appeared like a combination of Jack Kennedy and Martin Luther King? I think that's what happened to me and he had the rhetoric to go with the picture. God help us if we get some weak-ass health reform (and I'm an atheist.) How long can they extend unemployment? Those people and their families are going to get sick. It may end up that they'll have to deplete their assets, probably signing over their house to pay for their hospital bill and the hospitals in the future will end up owning more houses than all the banks put together. I'm anxious to see if Obama says anything progressive tomorrow.
Obama has such a potential for good , with his charisma and intelligence and seeming good will toward all, that it makes his betrayal of that potential so much harder to bear. If anyone could rally us to achiver better things he could , but he seems so willing to just settle for such limited yardage.
And that means our potential is wasted as well.
You do a really good job of capturing the Obama mystique. He has moments where he is like a drug, or like a love sick teenager as you said.
You ask why people will wonder why the potential was never actualized
My question is, why should potential ever BE actualized? It's the key to potential setting a goal, meeting it, then resetting the goal higher? Asking a person to reach their potential is kind of like trying to reach the speed of light. You can try, and you can get closer and closer by half each time, but you never actually get there
Nor should anyone ever reach their potential. If everyone always reached their potential, evolution would not be necessary, and that would lead to the demise of humanity as the world changes around us, but we dont change to meet its challenges
The absence of striving will ensure that anything remotely resembling potential will never be realized.
That's the thing that irks me. We have made some amazing strides, or are well on the way to making great strides in Health Care since the lifting of the stem cell research ban, the Christopher Reeves SCI stem cell trials, and the recent grant to the NIH.
But, because people are still trying to figure out how and who should pay for something that wont realistically be available for 20-50 years, those strides go nearly unnoticed
"But we will always wonder why that potential was never actualized
How about this. When Pres Obama was campaigning, he could count on the support of millions of people pounding the pavement for him. However, once he got elected, all those millions of people decided to go back to sitting on the sidelines. We all fell into the trap of thinking that one person can get the job done.
Here are a few examples:
1. Why weren't those millions out there at the beginning of the healthcare debate making the case for reform with a public option?
2. When the healthcare reform debate became dominated by the Tea-baggers, et al, everyone was callingfor Pres Obama to take the lead. Hello? Where are your leadership skills Congress?
3. Notice how the Congress is asking for the President to lead on DADT. Yet they are the ones who could easily overturn it.
4. Why is it only 3 or 4 out of 330 or more Democrats in Congress who have the ability to speak up like Reps Frank and Grayson, and Sen Rockerfeller? Where are the other House Reps and Senators?
5. Why is there no outcry from all the Democrats in Congress, indeed from all Democrats about the trip the Sen DeMint delegation to Honduras.
I seem to recall that on election night when Pres-Elect Obama gave his victory speech, he told us that he would need all our help. I guess we must have missed that part.
YES fanned
because the majority of Democrats (especially the leadership of the party)
are moderate republicans as defined by the Democratic Leadership Council
Maybe so, but when you consider that we have a Democratic majority under what was perceived as a transformative Democratic President, one has to wonder why such questions as posed by Mr. Azhar (and Hugo Chavez) need posing.
Is it not the President's role, as the head Democrat of the Democratic majority to lead that majority? Certainly it is not for the president alone to make sweeping decisions of finality (w's assertions and track record notwithstanding), but Obama has not taken the firm, clear, on-message posture that is necessary to guide the congressional majority..
His vast powers of speech, charisma, and most importantly, persuasion, have not been exercised where they need most to be exercised.
One has to wonder what his real intentions are. A repeated pattern of saying one thing and then doing another is old-hat in presidential politics, but did we vote for old-hat?
I basically agree with you, lordjin...
This problem is more about the lobbyists' control of our lawmakers.
Just a little FYI...not all of us are sitting on the sidelines. I went to Washington in September to march in support of the public option, planned for the day after the "teagaggers" march. Mysteriously, our permit for that march was canceled at the last minute, leaving the organizers hanging out in the wind. We did manage to get permission for a small rally at the park next to the Capitol Senate office building, out of sight...wi
It was clear that day that somebody up there did not want us seen or heard! We are fighting some huge corporations here, folks! They have unbelievable power over our legislative process. And I'm afraid it's only going to get worse. If the SCOTUS rules as expected this Fall, corporations will be able to donate DIRECTLY to political campaigns, choosing our leaders and "buying" the elections.
President Obama can only do so much! We must keep up the pressure and take our government back from the big corporations who buy our lawmakers!
He hasn't even supported ANYTHING that the people who pounded the pavement did all that work for.
I'd be willing to go to town hall meetings for single payer , but it wasn't even allowed in the room. But for insurance reform with public option - Meh!
Dylan Loewe
Op-ed contributor for The Guardian
Posted: September 28, 2009 09:22 AM
And largely, it's clear he has. On policy alone, for those who ask, "Where's the change?" I'd remind you that the stimulus bill alone has over $60 billion in renewable energy investments, that the equal pay act is now law, that federal restrictions on stem cells are over, that Obama delivered on the middle class tax cut he promised, and that the White House has tighter ethics rules and broader transparency than any previous administration. Let's not forget that, like he promised, Obama is withdrawing forces from Iraq, his justice department has initiated a torture probe and the DEA has been ordered to stop raiding medical marijuana dispensaries. He's meeting the Afghanistan question with a critical skepticism and the kind of commitment to clear strategic goals that any anti-war Democrat should appreciate. On September 23rd at the United Nations, he said, "On my first day in office, I prohibited -- without exception or equivocation -- the use of torture by the United States of America." He did that too.
There is a difference between saying he hasn't brought the specific change you're looking for and saying he hasn't brought change at all. There has already been undeniable, overwhelming change.
I cut out much of this but the whole thing is on his blog.
"are there two obamas?"
sadly it appears the answer is YES
one who gives brave left of center speaches and the other who is a right of center corporatist that isn't very bold at all in action
If Obama signs HCR without a robust PO (and triggers and co-ops do not count as robust) = draft bernie sanders 2012 and challenge Obama from the left as kenedy challanged carter for being to conservative
"But we will always wonder why that potential was never actualized".
Poor Martin Luther King. I pity Ghandi. If they were working for change today they'd never succeed. Not with this poster and others on the left. They'd want Civil Rights change within 9 months and Britian to leave India under eight. Wow.
Sometimes I believe that many on the left, so sure of their positions, so comfortable in their ease in academia DEMAND immediate action. It's nine months Mr. Azhar!
Exactly! These people are becoming so tiresome!
The streamalwa
Quite absurd indeed! 9 flippin' months and magic potion Prez O must fix everything, whilst they busily evaluate and judge! Who are all these people,again?
GET REAL PEOPLE...q
Im not calling for the "good" obama to prevail. He's had enough chances and has shown his neocon colors every time. He's a sell out. Period. Boght and paid for.
Love the hyperbole. Please list the "chances" President Obama has had and where he has "shown his neocon colors every time." I must have missed these sell outs over the course of the last eight and almost 1/2 months.
President Obama is just over nine months into office after inheriting the worst mess in American history and you ask why his potential was never realized? That is ridiculous. He has done more in nine months than any president in recent memory. The fact that the country was in disastrous shape when he began means that things are not going to be perfect now. As for your foreign policy disagreements with him, I suggest that you were previously projecting your own views onto him. He has been remarkably consistent. He was always supportive of Israel, but not to the point that he was willing to sell out the Palestinians. He always said that he understood the reasons for invading Afghanistan (as opposed to Iraq), so it is fitting that he would not abandon that war right off the bat. The fact that he is reconsidering the strategy there and is not eager to send more troops shows that he is a thoughtful President. Your criticisms are unfounded.
He'd demand the same of Ghandi!
Hamdan Azhar,
You are brilliant. However, you missed a vital point by either omission or commission. You are troubled why President Obama is insisting on Iran meeting its obligation by allowing IAEA unfettered access to inspect its nuclear facilities while saying nothing to Israel with nuclear arsenals. You derided Obama by calling it “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when it comes to Israel. Iran is a signatory to Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty but Israel is not. Please research this fact if you are in doubt.
I suggest people like YOU stop whining -- President Obama is doing a good job as President, trying to work to make the world safer, by ending the spread of nuclear weapons, and by trying to make changes that will provide healthcare to Americans, as well as focusing on renewable energy, as a way to slow down global warming. His Stimulus package he has provided funding for clean energy projects all over the country.
To make America safer, President Obama is pursuing the evil men like those who belong to AlQueda, and the extremists in the Taliban, these men in these extremist groups show everyday that they even hate their own muslim countrymen, planting roadside bombs, and killing their own muslims in Pakistan, and Afghanistan. AlQueda, and the Taliban in Pakistan: blowing up banks, and police stations in the centre of Pakistan, killing men, women, and children.
You have the Taliban in Afghanistan, planting road side bombs, and even blowing up buildings and killing their own muslims. AlQueda, and the Taliban in Afghanistan are killing their own muslims -- WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE ABOUT THIS!!!
Most people, even the majority of the Pakistan, and Afghan population are thankful that the USA is helping to go after the terrorists, because most peaceful muslims have seen with their own eyes that AlQueda, and the Taliban will kill their own muslim brothers in a second, to get what they want -- Explain WHY extremist muslims are so willing to kill other muslims? Write
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