Today soldified the return of my trust in my president and government. Obama signed an executive order freezing White House salaries. OK, I'll take that. Lead by example, however shocking it may seem. He also signed orders closing Guantanamo. Fulfilling a campaign promise, at least acknowledging that the voters who got him there do matter. Hold the phone. I cant take this much honesty.
What really impressed me, though, was something small. As Joe Biden swore in senior members of White house staff in front of the press corps, Biden quipped "My memory is not as good as Justice Roberts." This of course, was mere hours before Obama and Roberts got together for Presidential Oath 2.0. in the depths of the White House, creating the most intimate and least dramatic swearing-in ever of a US President ever photographed.
Biden's remark was delivered in a more biting and disrespectful manner than it appears in print. it was complete with mugging for the audience, and all it lacked was ba-dum-pah on the drums. The look on Obama's face was classic. He looked pained and irritated at Biden for stepping on the moment with jokes, but more importantly usurping Obama's example of a harmonious non-critical environment. There was a serious touch of 'what are you thinking?' in his eyes, and for me, the first real demonstration of Biden's famed foot-in-mouth reputation.
Not only did Obama not smile, he shook his head very slightly in a negative manner. For a man renowned for looking good and positive, he looked truly bugged. He was not impressed, but to be fair, it was not an impressive moment. It was Biden running wild with attention and doing a soft shoe. Later, having realized what a moron he had been, Biden looked very chastened. Better not be too many of those.
I've seen Biden speak for Obama before, and Obama exhibits almost a Putin-like steely distaste not for others getting on his stage, but going off-program. Obama wanted to control his environment, and dumb, critical jokes are not part of that scenery. This for me told me that not only is Obama very serious, but he can also be withering, and part of power isn't just being nice, but being strong and a bit scary. In that moment, Obama really scared Biden, and others who might think he's only soft and cuddly.
Obama has said that the flub was not just Roberts doing. Roberts fwas mostly responsible, though, both because he paused, and then stepped on Obama's start, and then cued him incorrectly. Obama was definitely thrown at that point, however, I've yet to see Obama have any problem memorizing anything. Interestingly, though, I really did think it was Obama's fault the first time I saw it, and the newsmedia really could have run with it had it not been both of their faults.
Obama's warm and light-hearted response really made the moment all right,
and Biden joking at someone's expense clearly will not go over well inside the Obama administration. This example of Obama being real, and yet not joining in on the quip as Bush likely would have done, merged with the burning fire of power I saw behind his eyes. This
engendered my trust and admiration as the glorious campaign fades, and the nitty-gritty reality of governing begins.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Obama Day 1
This blog is the result of a compulsion. I suddenly feel a need to follow my new president - Barack Hussein Obama - and his progress. Like with many things, I am late to the Obama party, although I did vote for him. I enjoyed the spontaneous celebration in downtown Seattle the night he was elected, photographed it and absorbed the joy it brought to blacks and others immensely, but I remained skeptical that it would progress beyond a well-packaged spectacle. I dont hand out my political admiration easily, if at all. Most of my heros are musicians, film directors and comedians, and intellectuals unencumbered by the dirty corruption of politics. Of course, I dont admire politicians. Who can?
As some of the appointments were announced over the last couple months, I felt pretty sure that Obama was going to be a sell-out. Hillary at State. Cowboy-hatted, mineral-rights loving Ken Salazar at Interior. Yuk. I read about the cost of the inauguration, and saw the spectacle of Hollywood and top-40 pop icons getting front-row seats to yet another party and awards ceremony. So what, I grumbled. As the night before the inauguration unfolded, however, I realized what a mistake I had made in not attending. This was something extraordinary. This was beyond freezing your ass off in an oppressive crowd. I failed to anticipate how big Obama's inauguration would actually be, partially because of the ball I've curled into under GW Bush, and the previous 15 years.
The last time I got excited about any president was in 1992, and within a few months it was clear that Hillary's health care plan was crashing and burning. Then when Newt Gingrich and his sour/arrogant compadres drove the Contract With (on) America over the body politic in 1994, a pall of real anger and disgust with the reactionary nature of the angry white republican male really enveloped me. It's not that I disagreed with them on every issue, especially on the jackboot thug nature of government military and police power, but the childish nature of their petty attacks, the schoolyard nya-nya-nyaing in the face of the body politic, mixed with the same-old minority and labor-hating warped pseudo-christian sentiment produced a swill of faux-revolutionary arrogance and ignorance so horrific that that I could only run screaming, averting my gaze from the stone-turning Medusa rays of rank right-wing stupidity.
Within a year of course, we had the Oklahoma City truck bombing, a truly shocking attack, not only in its scale and novelty of occurring on American soil, but later alarming in the implication of its political attack on the federal government. It turned out to be an attack not perpetrated by Iran or Islamic terroists, but by home-grown seditionists the kind of which the republican party had been fomenting and practically commanding like an armed wing to do exactly what they ended up doing. The fact that this once-rabid law and order party was willing to condone mass murder of American civilians and federal workers only because they couldnt stand Clinton's administration belied their deep corruption and utter disinterest in any sort of living with their neighbors. This made it clear that America was ideologically at war with itself, or rather, that the left once again could expect that anyone on the right would murder them at any time. This included gun-rights lawyers assassinated in Seattle, and abortion clinic workers murdered
across the nation.
There was a brief bright ray of light through the black cloud when the Republicans stalled and Clinton got re-elected in 1996, and the Internet reached a mass audience. This all seemed very positive, and then, well, Monica, Ken Starr, the stolen election of 2000, the manipulated election of 2004, and the continuing mealy-mouthed behavior of Democrats in the face of barely-veiled Republican threats that either you join the attack on Iraq, or they'll send you a love-letter filled with anthrax or EMP-pulse your private airplane. The suspicious nature of 9-11, and all the much-noted miscreant acts of the Caligula-grade Nutcase Emperor Buah and his mysteriously powerful consul, Dick Cheney, basically horrified but ultimately galvanized a nation.
My shell of cynicism began to crumble, first cracking in the winds kicked up by the blades of Marine 1 carting Bush off to his future home and self-deluded legacy, and more importantly, away from us, and specifically, me. Seeing people crying again, of course, drove the point home, like when we all saw Jesse Jackson cry on election night. Aretha Franklin and Rick Warren both truly surprised me - Franklin proved her place in history by singing easily but evocatively, and Warren churned out such a powerhouse of brimstone, filled with seeming tolerance and warmth for the president's family, that I was ready to toss a lifetime of atheism and follow the Lord.
Obama's inaugural address didn't grab me the first time around. I wanted more Roosevelt and Kennedy. It seemed a bit glum and unexciting. I had been up all night following every movement I could find on the net and broadcast TV, and i was tired and my shell still couldn't quite let him in. On second listening, though I found more of substance, and noticed less the seeming campaign talking points.
Barack is an analyst, and a poet, and Chuck Shumer positied that his non-excited delivery was intentional to talk directly to the people. Clearly, Obama is a dreamer, but his best quality is his people skills, not through underhanded manipulation, but just through his faith in people and desire to lead them.
The words Audacity of Hope keep going through my head. Is this what a leader can do? Can a leader lead me? Am I now alone in my ever so comfortable state of dismissal and dissent? Dissent is admirable against the odds. .The kind of abuse the Dixie Chicks is honorable dissent. Cynicism, however, seems increasingly to me like a cheap form of a lazy grab for exclusivity. It makes you feel special and smart not to be part of the cheering mass. I'm still not part of the cheering mass. I do not love this man's celebrity. I have to admit, though, that I have come to admire him, because if I can feel this opening, then I must thank him. I can only imagine the emotion that others with a greater stake, namely African Americans, must feel. It is easier to turn off and drop out. When you check in, you are responsible for something again.
Now I feel like a train is leaving the station, and if I remain cynical for the next four to eight years, and wonderful things happen, then I really will have no piece of this, so I cant take that risk. I have to take the risk of having some faith in this president. This emerging faith is fragile, and I know it can evaporate it. This blog is named Obama Our Ruler - or Obama Ruler, both literally, and because I will find it interesting to see if he can measure up to what I may want in a leader. Obama said he found a yearning for family stability he did not know when he married Michele, and I'm hoping he can deliver his dream to many of us that long ago gave up on ever knowing what being lead by their president could mean.
As some of the appointments were announced over the last couple months, I felt pretty sure that Obama was going to be a sell-out. Hillary at State. Cowboy-hatted, mineral-rights loving Ken Salazar at Interior. Yuk. I read about the cost of the inauguration, and saw the spectacle of Hollywood and top-40 pop icons getting front-row seats to yet another party and awards ceremony. So what, I grumbled. As the night before the inauguration unfolded, however, I realized what a mistake I had made in not attending. This was something extraordinary. This was beyond freezing your ass off in an oppressive crowd. I failed to anticipate how big Obama's inauguration would actually be, partially because of the ball I've curled into under GW Bush, and the previous 15 years.
The last time I got excited about any president was in 1992, and within a few months it was clear that Hillary's health care plan was crashing and burning. Then when Newt Gingrich and his sour/arrogant compadres drove the Contract With (on) America over the body politic in 1994, a pall of real anger and disgust with the reactionary nature of the angry white republican male really enveloped me. It's not that I disagreed with them on every issue, especially on the jackboot thug nature of government military and police power, but the childish nature of their petty attacks, the schoolyard nya-nya-nyaing in the face of the body politic, mixed with the same-old minority and labor-hating warped pseudo-christian sentiment produced a swill of faux-revolutionary arrogance and ignorance so horrific that that I could only run screaming, averting my gaze from the stone-turning Medusa rays of rank right-wing stupidity.
Within a year of course, we had the Oklahoma City truck bombing, a truly shocking attack, not only in its scale and novelty of occurring on American soil, but later alarming in the implication of its political attack on the federal government. It turned out to be an attack not perpetrated by Iran or Islamic terroists, but by home-grown seditionists the kind of which the republican party had been fomenting and practically commanding like an armed wing to do exactly what they ended up doing. The fact that this once-rabid law and order party was willing to condone mass murder of American civilians and federal workers only because they couldnt stand Clinton's administration belied their deep corruption and utter disinterest in any sort of living with their neighbors. This made it clear that America was ideologically at war with itself, or rather, that the left once again could expect that anyone on the right would murder them at any time. This included gun-rights lawyers assassinated in Seattle, and abortion clinic workers murdered
across the nation.
There was a brief bright ray of light through the black cloud when the Republicans stalled and Clinton got re-elected in 1996, and the Internet reached a mass audience. This all seemed very positive, and then, well, Monica, Ken Starr, the stolen election of 2000, the manipulated election of 2004, and the continuing mealy-mouthed behavior of Democrats in the face of barely-veiled Republican threats that either you join the attack on Iraq, or they'll send you a love-letter filled with anthrax or EMP-pulse your private airplane. The suspicious nature of 9-11, and all the much-noted miscreant acts of the Caligula-grade Nutcase Emperor Buah and his mysteriously powerful consul, Dick Cheney, basically horrified but ultimately galvanized a nation.
My shell of cynicism began to crumble, first cracking in the winds kicked up by the blades of Marine 1 carting Bush off to his future home and self-deluded legacy, and more importantly, away from us, and specifically, me. Seeing people crying again, of course, drove the point home, like when we all saw Jesse Jackson cry on election night. Aretha Franklin and Rick Warren both truly surprised me - Franklin proved her place in history by singing easily but evocatively, and Warren churned out such a powerhouse of brimstone, filled with seeming tolerance and warmth for the president's family, that I was ready to toss a lifetime of atheism and follow the Lord.
Obama's inaugural address didn't grab me the first time around. I wanted more Roosevelt and Kennedy. It seemed a bit glum and unexciting. I had been up all night following every movement I could find on the net and broadcast TV, and i was tired and my shell still couldn't quite let him in. On second listening, though I found more of substance, and noticed less the seeming campaign talking points.
Barack is an analyst, and a poet, and Chuck Shumer positied that his non-excited delivery was intentional to talk directly to the people. Clearly, Obama is a dreamer, but his best quality is his people skills, not through underhanded manipulation, but just through his faith in people and desire to lead them.
The words Audacity of Hope keep going through my head. Is this what a leader can do? Can a leader lead me? Am I now alone in my ever so comfortable state of dismissal and dissent? Dissent is admirable against the odds. .The kind of abuse the Dixie Chicks is honorable dissent. Cynicism, however, seems increasingly to me like a cheap form of a lazy grab for exclusivity. It makes you feel special and smart not to be part of the cheering mass. I'm still not part of the cheering mass. I do not love this man's celebrity. I have to admit, though, that I have come to admire him, because if I can feel this opening, then I must thank him. I can only imagine the emotion that others with a greater stake, namely African Americans, must feel. It is easier to turn off and drop out. When you check in, you are responsible for something again.
Now I feel like a train is leaving the station, and if I remain cynical for the next four to eight years, and wonderful things happen, then I really will have no piece of this, so I cant take that risk. I have to take the risk of having some faith in this president. This emerging faith is fragile, and I know it can evaporate it. This blog is named Obama Our Ruler - or Obama Ruler, both literally, and because I will find it interesting to see if he can measure up to what I may want in a leader. Obama said he found a yearning for family stability he did not know when he married Michele, and I'm hoping he can deliver his dream to many of us that long ago gave up on ever knowing what being lead by their president could mean.
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