Why I’m Kinda Fonda Obama (And More So Each Week)
by David Michael Green
Some of us who like Barack Obama get accused of having drunk the Kool-Aid - or perhaps love-potion would be more accurate - and thus being too smitten by his rhetorical enticements to see him clearly for what he is.
Maybe that accurately describes many of his fans, but it’s definitely not me.
I warmed up to Obama slowly, and I’m still rather dubious about what he would actually do as president. Moreover, I found his rhetorical gifts to be, if anything, both overstated and simultaneously a bit off-putting. For a long time, I never thought that Obama was quite the magician at the microphone that he was supposed to be. And when he was eloquent, he raised my hard-earned suspicions about those politicians who can make people feel good with words, whilst deftly picking their pockets at the very same time. We had a president like that in the 1980s, and then another one in the 1990s. It didn’t work out so well. (Although it did work out better than the current one, who skipped the rhetorical foreplay altogether and jumped directly to the royal screwing.)
I didn’t really start to warm up to Obama until February or so. But I have to say that since then, he seems more impressive to me each week. It’s easy to like this guy a lot in a relative sense - which may be why I or others come off as gaga for ‘Bama when we’re not actually. Anyhow, he’s certainly light-years ahead of either of his competitors for the presidency. But, the more I see him in action, the more I like him in an absolute sense as well. I think perhaps he’s for real, and I think perhaps he could be a great president at a moment of multiple crises in this country.
Perhaps not. The real danger is that he would settle for half-measures and replicate the behavior of the Clinton presidency (make that one-tenth-measures). He might even be adored for that, given the public’s disgust with the current government, and given their actual desire to avoid serious amounts of real change, however much they like to mouth the words. Even if that was all he was, that would still be one hell of an improvement. I think he would have little choice but to end the war in Iraq and to move on national healthcare, even if he didn’t want to risk the considerable political capital necessary for pursuing either of these initiatives. Those two changes alone would be worth the price of admission, but you most certainly could also throw in improved relations with the world, a real government in place of rampant cronyism, much improved environmental protection, and at least moderates as choices for the Supreme Court and other federal judgeships. Like I said, that alone - essentially a return to the status quo ante - would represent some very substantial improvement.
I’d say the real question is whether Obama would have the courage and skill to tackle other real problems that require Americans to actually make some serious changes and sacrifices, and that would require fighting some very powerful lobbies. Certainly healthcare falls under that category, but I think Obama has promised that enough now that he could not really walk away from it. But what about energy policy? Global warming? Military spending? De-imperializing American foreign policy? Entitlement reform? The deficit and the debt? The economy? Gay rights? Regulation of Wall Street?
He can’t try to do all these things at once, and he absolutely shouldn’t. And yet, many of them scream out for solutions yesterday, let alone tomorrow. Obama could probably easily ride out four years, or even eight, and still get away with pretending to address some of these problems, while remaining highly popular. Clinton did it. Indeed, it is quite likely that much of Obama’a popularity would rest on his not seriously addressing these issues. But the mark of greatness in his or any other presidency is the ability to articulate the big issues of our time (and to do so accurately, Mr. Bush), to place them on the national agenda, to sell the issues at home and abroad, to advance the right solutions, and then to successfully implement those. FDR did it twice, with the New Deal and the World War II. Clinton never did - unless you happen to think the V-Chip was a great leap forward for humankind - though the near-term read on his presidency is that it was still modestly successful. Does Obama have Rooseveltian levels of courage and moxie to be something special? Hard to say so far (and, of course, there’s the minor matter of getting elected still ahead of him), but I like some of the signs I see.
I like Obama more each week for a number of reasons. One is certainly the eloquent rhetoric. I think that can be hugely important, as long as it’s real, not empty. I’ll admit that I initially shared the concern of many that Obama was all rhetoric, no substance. And, to a certain extent it’s true, his speeches pretty much contain a lot of lofty notions that are about as objectionable as motherhood and apple pie. But the truth is that he’s actually used some pretty tough language on a number of issues, including the two I care about most - the war and economic justice. When I looked closely at those speeches I realized that he is saying pretty much exactly what I’d want a progressive politician to be saying. And, to the minor extent that he’s not tossing more red meat out in my direction, I have to admire his wisdom in refraining from doing so, even assuming (which I don’t) that he is so inclined. He’s not going to get elected by banging the socialism drum, or the Bush impeachment drum, or the fairness to Palestinians drum, so why should he? Especially as a candidate, I don’t expect him to commit political suicide, nor do I want him to. As they say, sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good. A perfect Candidate Obama would surely yield a disastrous President McCain. No thanks to that.
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