I got an email from one of my college roommates yesterday wishing all on the
distribution list a glorious Inauguration Day and welcoming the Obama era.
His daughter ran the Obama campaign in NH of which he is mightily proud.
Now, this is a sober and intelligent guy. Never particularly political
unless you count cynicism as a political attitude and virtue. I expect this
kind of crap from the lamos around here, but I was surprised by this
guy.
Anyone who ever had faith in the ideals of this country knew that a black
president was not impossible and probably inevitable. I think Martin Luther
King believed that. This is really childishness, reminiscent of the Kennedy
myth. For all the blather about democracy and equality, there are a lot of
people in this country (a majority right now) who welcome a regent. The cult of
personality has always been disastrous, no less than in this country (cf.
FDR).
Obama is just a man, albeit one with an above average ability to keep his mouth shut
and his options open (no small feat especially for a politician) but that is really all
that defines his political "skill". He is intelligent, but he does not know a
lot, and the narrowness of his experience will not serve him well in a crisis.
It already has exposed a certain shallowness of thought in the deliberative
run-up to his ascension. [UPDATE: see further exposition of Obama's press strategy
here. It is impossible to conceive of this working without a compliant press. Certainly no one but a Democrat would be allowed to skate on so many issues; and actually, even among Democrats, no one but Obama. The interesting thing will be to see if the press' creation will turn on them and then how the press will react.]
We will see. I wish him well, because I wish America well - more so now
than at any time in my life because the citizenry seems so vulnerable to
self-destructive political palliatives, and there are fewer alternatives to
America in other parts of the world at this time in history.
