Well Done, America

Well done, America. Very well done, America. Friends of the United States have spent ten years tearing their hair in despair. We have been through a thousand cries of anguish, apologies, murmured curses and pleas that the White House of Bill Clinton and George Bush "is not all of America, you know." Tuesday's elevation of Barack Obama and the manifest joy of his united nation shone through the current gloom as a stab of joy. It was the dreamed-for moment.

The late Arthur Schlesinger used to say to all skeptics that the American constitution contained hidden within it a secret self-correcting mechanism called the ballot. However chaotic the ride, it would take the country to the brink of disaster -- be it pre-war isolationism, McCarthyism, Bush paranoia -- yet somehow find a means of retreat. Hope would never quite die. The constitution was sound, indeed a work of genius.

I have endured many arguments over recent years at which I have proffered that thesis, with diminishing conviction. The mendacities of the war on terror, the idiocies of the war on drugs, the final assault on what had been unshakable American liberties, all required an ever more implausible act of faith. That faith has had its epiphany.

The rise of Obama is rightly presented as a symbol not a process. Electorally his victory was no more than a pendulum shift back to the Democratic Party after the Republican ascendancy. But democracy is a mix of symbols and processes, of words as well as deeds.

Obama is a symbol and a word without precedent in American history. To those of us who read his memoir long before he ran for president and imagined a future for this extraordinary man, the moment is sweet indeed. Not since the 1940s has the world so needed confident, liberal-minded, Rooseveltian leadership. It needs guidance out of the morass of western intervention in the politics of islam. It needs clear thinking through the collapse of world financial markets. Above all it needs the confidence to see the past decade as an era of correctable error, not original sin. The tangled web of democracy and the risks and tolerances of liberty need reasserting. While Obama's speech was mostly a sprucing up of familiar clichés, it left no doubt of one thing. Here is a president who understands the job required of him.

America's leadership has bullied, insulted and misruled the world for long enough. In doing so it has damaged the sacred covenant of freedom which, with more than a touch of smugness, it has long abrogated to itself. Obama may yet prove a disappointment. The task asked of him by his predecessors, by all of us, may be too great. But for the moment that is of no account. American democracy has delivered, and done so spectacularly. It is a moment not just of satisfaction but of exhilaration. Well done, America.

Comments

[FZliveson]

To say: "The task asked of him by his predecessors, by all of us, may be too great. But for the moment that is of no account" is balderdash.

Obama is supposed to LEAD not to DO. It is up to us to follow his lead, to advise and guide him with our force of numbers. It is up to us to demand what we deserve and want. To infer that we have to wait for less-than-­advertised results is, in effect, making us servants of the government, victims instead of the legitimate source of power. Words like those quoted above are predictable from the mouth of a POME (prisoner of Mother England) of a culture, so steeped in the dominance by the royals that you have not yet seized your parliamentary government and shaped it to the will of the people. Princess Diana was a flash in the old grease. She was exterminated. If we leave it to Obama to handle he will be extinguished by burden, confusion, Limbaughisms or worse. Our patriot forbearers ceased to be governed and created the system, now corrupted and abused, that we so inaccurately call "democracy."

[rmajh5]

Over the years, whenever a left wing idiot from America's political spectrum would make some obviously inappropriate comment about our leaders from the conservative wing of our political world, the responses from many on the right would be to challenge the patriotism of the idiot and suggest that said idiot go live in another country.

Now comes Rush Limbaugh from the right side of the curtain to say in response to a question about America's hopes for Obama's presidency: "I hope he fails."

In all of my disagreements with George Bush, and there were many, I always ended my expression of my views about Bush's policies by expressing a hope that I would be found to be wrong and that our nation would be the better for Bush's policies. And when, in my view, I found that Bush had in fact left us in a mess, I found no satisfaction at believing I had been right.

Rush Limbaugh needs to brush up on our American history and on the definition of what patriotism truly is.

[sacto92]

America's democracy delivers every 4 years. American's greatness is displayed dramatically every 4 years. Every Presidential election results in the peaceful transition of power or the reaffirmation of the sitting President. This is independent of whether or not you like or approve of the person who is elected. It's sad that so many can only see how truly great our republic is when "their side" is elected.

[FZliveson]

Strongly disagree. Every four years the machine gets new parts, which need to break in to run smoothly, then it runs, out of control, over the homes, food stores and schools of the people who think they had elected public servants. Democracy is the rule of the majority. We have rule of lobbiests and public snobs, who, once elected do whatever it takes to look good and get reelected again. Wake up and smell the real air, not Glade air fresheners

[Pyrum]

"Obama may yet prove a disappointment." May? Don't worry, he will.

[FZliveson]

Pyrum...you are a "critic or a prisoner."
There are four kinds of citizens:
1) Prisoners...here by birth against their will
2) Critics...just here to complain, like Rush Limbaugh
3) Vacationer­s..."Whate­ver" people who are just being entertained by it all
4) Developers...the ones who will pick up the conductor's baton, the ball, the hammer, the story, the rolling pin, the pen, the sword...the ones who get it done.

[flossophy]

Rooseveltian?

Mr Jenkins... did the British public education system teach you that FDR's policies helped get us out of the Great Depression? Not so. While his policies were an electoral success, they by no means helped the economy out of it's government­-policy-in­duced slump.

I fear Obama will go down the path of FDR and secure a voting bloc at the expense of helping the economy. The intent is to reset the Democrat party back to 1979, before all this free market hogwash ruined everything. Imagine if we had Google in 1932.

No, Mr Jenkins... we made an error. We may about to repeat the mistakes of history. We're at a tipping point... with the most surprising figure at the helm.

[SiberianRat]

Your last paragraph sums it up well. Quite frankly, after the last 8 years, I had lost faith in America altogether--it feels great to not feel that way now.

[FZliveson]

SiberianRat....tell me one thing in the history of mankind that has been achieved by feelings. It is action that makes everything happen, not feeeeeeeelings.

[SamEllison]

We've stopped digging the hole,
we can only go up from here.

Something about living in an interesting time...

[FZliveson]

Sam: You say;

"We've stopped digging the hole,
we can only go up from here."

It is possible that a million tons of dirt can be thrown in the hole
on top of us and bury us!

[Biffmeister]

Thank you for the kind words.

[evilzed]

Personally I h8ted Bush, but I feel Obama installing some of the very people who aided and abetted this massive fraud on the American People, the Credit Crisis and the absolute looting of Taxpayers money, being given to these Moguls of Finance, smacks of more of the same.
Conspiracy or not, we have entered the predicted, dredded New World Order, and the very bankers who drove us to bankruptsy, STILL have unimpeeded access to reek carnage on the American people let alone the world.
Add this to the proposed compolsary Nation Army Service for 18 to 25 years olds, Bidens guns take, and blowing 150 million on a party, with the very same donators who were bailed out.
Oh My G-d.

[MarionWatts]

Mr Jenkins,

Thank you for your approbation, but we do not need your benediction. We threw off the yoke of British oppression over 200 years ago when you failed to recognise the colonials as true and worthy first-class British citizens. You (collectively) have been subtly snarking us since then. We know our faults and we are well aware of the damage done by Bush to the country and to our image abroad for the past 8 years. Now we're about to do as the President says and dust our image off again through a change in ethos and in deed. Indeed, it's to our great advantage that we have a written Constitution, something your lot do not have, and that we the people choose our presidential candidate and vote for him, instead of counting on a vote for our local representative to be instrumental in choosing our ultimate leader, as is the done thing in your parliamentary system. I would suggest the British lay off jumping on a smarmy bandwagon of support and pay close attention to affairs closer to home - like the sinking pound, which is now worth less than the euro. Thanks for the shout out, but we'll be just fine.

[bill76]

Ouch! Jenkins you just got owned!

[sade]

Not bitter then....still whining after all these years...get a grip lol

[Jonster]

A bit smug and patronizing in tone, wouldn't you say.

While we are all wrapped up in the comfort of a cult of personality, perhaps we should begin to wonder about the future of this country instead of constantly atoning for the past.

Take a step back in time, over 30 years ago. We were tired of the corrupt and crooked Nixon administration and of the opening up of new fronts in a war we could not win. Nixon had the lowest approval ratings and even the people who voted for him couldn't stand him. We said "Pardon?" when Ford let Nixon off the hook. This country needed a new direction.

Suddenly, as though in a mirage, a man appeared out of the ether. He was articulate, thoughtful, a beaming, spiritual man with nothing but goodness (and lust) in his heart. We knew he wanted the best for us, and he broke the political stereotype of which we had become disgusted.

Islamists in Teheran, sensing our disgust and this new direction, wasted no time making a fool of Jimmy Carter in front of the world.

[Joethepauper]

Mosadeq 1953 and the Shah are the reasons for the hostage crisis, and the reason for the current bad relations with Iran. If our leadership would address the wrongs of that era, it would go a long way towards normalizing diplomatic relations of the future. I am by no means saying we should apologize, but we could admit that it was wrong. (sort-of like when the American spy plane crashed on an island in the China sea (early 2001) and we smoothed-it-over with just short of an apology....and never got our spy plane back from China or had it destroyed so they wouldn't reverse engineer the technology. That's one of the many things that soured my opinion of Bush.) But just recognizing our errors in the past would help-out with many populations in the world. See Allende of Chile, or ask Nelson Mandela.

[evilzed]

Why not apologize? dont you think, thanks to US Foreign Policy and the actions of the CIA, the deaths of so many Iranians is worth nothing,
Again, US intervention through Black Ops leads to the deaths of millions of innocent people for the sake of Oil and Resources.
In the last few decades honestly, what has changed?
Only which country the US is invading.

[bjammin]

Better than the last guy. He just made a fool of himself.

And you.

[flossophy]

well put, Jonster.

[Rockwell]

Thankls, Simon. And uh, sorry about the last 10 years. Could you let the rest of the world know we're really really sorry. Its kind of painful to talk about.

[MarionWatts]

Apologise ourselves through our deeds to the rest of the world. Don't rely on the British to do it. Their government was slavish to Bush and chafed at having to do so behind his back. The British press is rife at the moment with op-eds urging Gordon Brown to be the first to 'advise' Barack Obama and 'guide' him. Hello? Message to the British media and the British people: The Revolution happened over 200 years ago. You lost. Get over it. If anyone can grab a copy of Alaistair Campbell's diary of the Blair years (he was Blair's senior advisor), have a read. You'll be interested to note that our very own Bill Clinton ran Britain behind the scenes from 1997 until 2001. Blair and New Labour couldn't take a trip to the can without phoning Clinton on the red phone to ask permission.

[ProudLiberalDan]

Thank you, Simon.

I have long appreciated reading your commentary in British newspapers. I hope you will blog for Huffingtonpost more often.

[KindAndThoughtful]

Thank you for the post.

[RButler]

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Obama is the 'first half black president'? Consider that if his mother had been a legal immigrant from Mexico, for example, would he be the first 'Hispanic' president or 'black' president. Each culture would be attempting to claim him in that case. So, what's different about his mother being white? After all, his autobiography and campaign made a point of his mixed heritage. It's interesting how everything is spun to suit whoever is doing the spinning.

[ladyv]

He's black if he says he's black, because there's actually no such thing as race. It's a forced meme from the 18th century.

People who have a parent they identify as black and another they identify as Hispanic identify as either/or.

[Joethepauper]

Yup, we are actually all African-Americans, African-Europeans, African-Asians, etc., because our species emerged from Africa. Some of us lost our pigment, and our hair became straighter, but we are all related. If science would eventually eclipse our outdated religious beliefs, and people would embrace reality, we could have world peace. But we like labels and oppression too much to let them go easily. If everyone was the same color and the same religion, we would still find something to kill each other over. We can stop, it's possible, but we cling to our superstitious beliefs anyway.