Barack Obama: Here's Hoping

I get a sense that a lot of Democrats feel antipathy towards Barack Obama these days.

They feel like he’s not living up to the hype, and to compound the issue, President Obama isn’t living up to his own hype.

I remember when I was in college, and Senator Obama, came to my school for a campaign rally.  I wrote in the paper I worked for “that people are in love with the idea of Barack Obama more than the man himself.”

He was a great campaigner, a man of hope.  Someone who would change the way business was done in Washington.

I think it’s safe to say that he hasn’t lived up to his own projected ideal.  He hasn’t been the fiery leader we all expected.

What we got instead was a politician.

I have no qualms with politicians.  Yes, they lie.  They go back on their word.  But at this stage in American history, is it really all that surprising.

Politicians are dealmakers; they make compromises.  I think there’s something quaint about the Obama presidency.  I say quaint in the best possible connotation of the word.

He’s a throwback.

Are we really surprised that a man’s whose only political experience is as a senator and a community organizer would act like a senator and a community organizer?

Are we surprised that a law professor would take his time, analyze every angle and then present a nuanced perhaps confusing solution to nuanced and confusing problems.

My father has spent the last 11 years of his career as a professor for Penn State.  He constantly tells stories about hours wasted in the faculty senate as they argue about syntax.

President Barack Obama loves to argue syntax. 

I don’t think that’s a bad thing. 

Government is supposed to be slow.  That’s the way it was designed.  I believe that Democrats who thought Barack Obama would come into office and make sweeping changes are misguided.

I think they wanted a liberal George W. Bush.  Someone who would come in, lay down the law and make the changes necessary.

I don’t believe they were wrong in feeling that way.  In fact, that’s what Obama said he was going to do. 

But the realities of the campaign trail, and the realities of the presidency are vastly different.

One requires a champion and the other requires a realist. 

Government is not, and should not, be a gut reaction.  It should pragmatic.  It should be slow.  It should be steady.

A lot of Democrats feel like Barack Obama is a failure.  I understand that.  Candidate Obama is.

President Obama is not.

Sure, there have been some missteps.  The Nobel Peace Prize (for what?), the bombing in Libya, but these aren’t deal breakers.  They are the reasonable miscalculations of a reasonable man.

The ebb and flow of the presidency is one of ups and downs.  Good days and bad.

My only hope, and certainly a criticism, for Barack Obama is that he understands the stakes.

There is aloofness to his presidency, a sense that he is above the political dirty work.

Not the compromise, not the deal making, but the day-to-day processes of the political machine.

To President Obama the daily press conference, the talking points, are all arbitrary.  They are passing—day-to-day.

He believes that he’s above that.  Beyond it.

He’s asking for our trust. 

For a little bit longer, I’ll give it to him.