Obama: Governing in Prose

 

The latest rap from Obama’s base is that he didn’t do enough to “change” Washington. They complain that he came in as an agent of hope and change and now it’s even more partisan. Obama is seen as a creature of Washington, according to his leftist critics. He’s too conventional.

 

One thing I would ask: Are they living in the real world or the Land of Oz? Since when is one man solely responsible for changing a nation? Martin Luther King represented generational change that took a lifetime.

It’s my belief that the electorate has changed. The makeup of the voters has changed. The Eisenhower years, and the Obama years, may seem a bit flat to some. Maybe because there are no new wars? The impression remains that he has worked behind the scenes to get things done.

 His legacy will be Health Care. He has taken the country off of a “war footing” (the Military Industrial Complex). His oratory, his personal style, and his capture of Osama Bin Laden remain highlights for his administration. And against all odds, he beat Hillary and then embraced her.

Yet that is not enough. He remains a polarizing figure. But the man himself is a pragmatist who lives in the real world. He’s a beautifully romantic statesman at times, and a careful craftsman with an astute sense of his place in history. He may also be one of the best authors who ever served as President-Dreams from My Father proves that.

 He is not without fault. But the notion that he betrayed his ideals therefore he’s fallen short of his promised nirvana is just ridiculous. Obama is a pragmatic man with a vision for the long-term who was tasked with steering a ship of state in a shaky economy into smoother waters, (if you want to continue the tortured metaphor).

Like his predecessor, George W. Bush,  he saw what he wanted to do when he ran. And like Bush, he had to drastically alter his ambition and commit to a wholly new set of goals once he saw the crisis looming on the horizon.

In Bush's case, it was 9/11. In Obama's, it was a faltering economy that was teetering into another depression on the eve of his election. I recall talk of swearing him in early. Perhaps we've forgotten these small points, but the economy truly was on the brink of collapse. This type of crisis changes men. It changed Obama.

It’s been well documented that on the day of Obama’s inaugural. Republicans plotted their opposition strategy, and remained loyal to it even above the interests of their country. If anything should disappoint, perhaps this should be the thing.

Obama is not perfect. However, those claiming he has betrayed a higher goal are simply naive.  Mario Cuomo said it best: “You campaign in poetry but you govern in prose”. That is the real life response from a pragmatic Romanticist.