Half Way In

In Tucson, he showed up as the charismatic leader rather than the policy wonk which seemed to lead people to believe the message that he’s “not one of us,” however one means that.


It’s halfway through Barack Obama’s first term as President, and I’m filled with a lot of mixed feelings. On one hand, I think his rhetoric far outstrips his ability to govern. In other words, he promised much more than he could deliver. On the other hand, if Bill Clinton was hampered by a “vast right-wing conspiracy,” that was nothing compared with what Obama has been facing.

What initially struck me about the President-elect back in December 2008 is that he was already acting as though he were already in charge. The bad news about the economy was becoming more fully released, and he appeared fully involved in trying to fix it. My wife noted at the time that he seemed more visible than the 43rd President.

So his inaugural speech was less inspirational than I might have wanted; still, we were promised the audacity of hope. Thus, it seems that a lot of people saw Barack Obama the way they WANTED to see him. Surely, he’ll get rid of the onerous secret human rights violations that many were distressed about under his predecessor. That did not prove to be the case.

The American participation in the war in Iraq had greatly diminished, as he said would happen, but he was never allowed any credit for that in some circles because he had opposed the war in the first place, and moreover opposed the surge that most analysts suggested allowed for the withdrawal.

Meanwhile, the war in Afghanistan has expanded, with the endpoint pushed back later (2011) and later (2014).

In his dealings over health care, it seemed that this man has never played poker. “Oh, here’s what I have in my hand. Let’s go.” So it is not, as some pundits claim, that the Left is upset that the health care bill didn’t provide the universal health care provisions it had hoped, and that then-senator Obama seemed to favor. It was that he folded on it, well before it was necessary. Thus, the bill that was finally passed was ultimately only a Democratic bill, even though it was twisted and altered to get Republican support that largely never came.

It did not help when Obama, and Vice-President Biden, for that matter, lectured the Left on how grateful they should feel and that they were the best hope they could expect. That is in stark contradiction with newly-elected President Obama requesting the Left to keep him honest, make noise.

Yet, it’s difficult for me not to have some sympathy for the President, who had to deal with the birthers, those who have him pegged as a socialist fascist.

Ah, a black President! Our racial problems are over! The President can help us in dialogue. What we end up with is a hastily arranged beer summit, and perhaps a realization that we are not as “post-racial” as previously thought. I don’t blame that on Obama but on our own self-congratulatory rhetoric. And I’ve discovered that there are certain folks who are genuinely offended that he refers to himself as a black man, rather than biracial because he seems to be denying part of himself; I received a comment saying as much just last week.

The President does have skills. Even FOX News was hard-pressed to criticize him for his speech in Tucson last week. Here he showed up as the charismatic leader rather than the policy wonk which seemed to lead people to believe the message that he’s “not one of us,” however one means that, who showed up explaining health care or the BP oil spill, though getting $20 billion from BP I thought was a masterful stroke that didn’t get enough credit. And, as I’ve said before, I believe his seeming aloof manner may be a studied attempt not to come across as an “angry black man.”

Frankly, I had him pegged as a one-term President for certain after his first 22 months in office, only to be surprised by his successes with the START treaty with Russia, the elimination of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and a food safety bill.

The narrative is now that he’s moved to the center, and this will save him. His willingness to compromise with Republicans over the tax cuts presumably shows his leadership. I never pegged him as a liberal, but rather a moderate. But the narrative has improved his job approval ratings.

In any case, who knows what the next several months will bring? It’s unlikely that the Democrats will challenge him in the primaries. As for his Republican opponent, who knows? Because the GOP changed its rules, a lot of the early winner-take-all primaries have been changed to a more proportional delegate distribution.

Who will I vote for in 2012? Well, it depends. Might be Barack Obama; depends on what the next two years bring.

In Memoriam

It seems sadly fitting that the US death toll reached 1,000 in the Afghanistan war this weekend.

I’ve discovered that there seems to be some confusion about the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day. That fact confuses me, frankly, though their previous designations would be much more unclear.

Memorial Day, which falls on the last Monday of May, commemorates the men and women who died while serving in the American military. Originally known as Decoration Day, it originated in the years following the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971.

Whereas:
Veterans Day, initially designated as Armistice Day in 1919, after World War I is a celebration to honor America’s veterans.

It seems sadly fitting that the US toll reached 1,000 deaths in the Afghanistan war this weekend, with “more U.S. military deaths in the last 10 months… than in the first five years of the conflict. More boots on the ground than in Iraq.”

Despite my major misgivings about the war(s), the list of war dead always affects me, every Sunday morning on ABC News’ This Week.
Here’s the one for February 10, 2008, which also noted the death of ABC’s former Pentagon correspondent John McWethy, who asked a former Secretary of Defense a pertinent question. This one, for February 15, 2010, also noted the deaths of Congressman John Murtha, who opposed the Iraq war, and former Congressman Charlie Wilson, who was a proponent of US involvement in Afghanistan years before the current conflict.

Oh, yeah, the lie that Obama’s non-presence at Arlington is somehow unprecedented. I’m perfectly comfortable with differences of opinions; deliberate prevarication is something else again.

Celebrity deaths:
Art Linkletter, 97 – I watched House Party when I was a kid, probably up to when I went to kindergarten, but not so much afterward. I always think that the “darndest things” the kids said rather annoying, actually.
Gary Coleman, 42 – I might have watched a half-season of Diff’rent Strokes, maybe less, before bailing. The L.A. Times obit made mention of his “unlikely run for California governor”. As though the state hadn’t elected an actor in the position before. He becomes another cautionary tale, I suppose.
Dennis Hopper, 74 – I remember him from my earliest television watching, though I didn’t know his name. I know him best from Easy Rider, but he was also the villain in the first movie The Wife and I ever saw together, Speed. I was still watching 24 for his villainous turn there. He was an artist and an iconoclast. Damn, died of prostate cancer, just like my father.

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