What Obama’s done right
But after walking around with “Love?” written on my hand for a day, I realized a couple things: A) I’m a lonely, miserable husk of a person (every time I looked at my hand, I thought “Not in this lifetime”); and B) As someone who hasn’t been in a long-term relationship since high school, and who refers to his lone sexual maneuver as “The Shame Spiral,” I’m not exactly an authority on the subject. My dispensing love advice would be like Hurley from “Lost” handing out diet tips (although I agree that Sayid could use a little more soul food in his life).
Instead, I’ll stick to what I pretend to know best: Politics.
It’s been a bumpy first month for President Obama; although he seems likely to push his stimulus package through Congress, it’s been pared down considerably and criticized heavily on both sides of the aisle. Two of his nominees-Nancy Killefer (for the spiffy new position of Chief Performance Officer) and Tom Daschle (Health & Human Services Secretary)-have bowed out after forgetting to pay a couple (hundred thousand dollars worth) of taxes. Meanwhile, the economy is still gasping for air, and the unemployment rate just hit a 16-year high. No realistic person thought his first 100 days would be easy, but considering the smoothness and surgical precision of Obama’s campaign, most people weren’t expecting so many gaffes quite so soon.
That being said, cut the man some slack.
He’s new at this, after all, and it’s not the easiest job in the world. (It might even be the hardest, although motherhood is no cakewalk.) Obama has done a lot of things right over the past few weeks, including the following:
Retaking the oath of office. It’s always good when the President of the United States is, in fact, the President of the United States. After a surprisingly awkward exchange with Chief Justice Roberts on Inauguration Day, Obama and Roberts had to redo the ceremony behind closed doors because, maybe, technically, Obama wasn’t the President yet. So if he wasn’t, who was? Bush? Biden? Nobody? Was the enormous, glorious freedom freighter that is AMERICA puttering around without a captain there for a few days? These are the questions that keep me up at night.
Shutting down Guantanamo. On a more serious note, this absolutely had to be done. Detaining and torturing prisoners for months or years on end, with no chance of a trial and in some cases no legitimate evidence of wrongdoing-this is criminal. There are more humane and effective ways to fight terror, and from what I’ve heard out of Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, the new administration is committed to a tough-but-fair approach that should quell not only the outbreak of America-hatred that Bush repeatedly, dangerously stoked like a worldwide wildfire, but also the rash of America-shame that has swelled within our own borders since 2001. (Symptoms include telling people you’re Canadian while traveling abroad, and voting for Obama.)
Nominating Judd Gregg as Commerce Secretary. In stark contrast to the preceding President, Obama shrewdly refuses to surround himself with yes-men. I don’t agree with many of Gregg’s positions, and neither does Obama-that’s the point. Gregg is the third Republican he’s placed in his Cabinet, because dissenting opinions breed dialogue, and dialogue breeds fresh ideas. As Maroon 5 so poignantly noted in their 2004 single “She Will Be Loved”: “It’s not always rainbows and butterflies/It’s compromise that moves us along.” Adam Levine was singing (beautifully!) about relationships, but the same bipartisan principle can be applied to most of the legislation that reaches the Senate floor.
Owning up to his mistakes. Thus far, Obama’s governing policy could be aptly described as “The exact opposite of whatever George W. Bush did under similar circumstances”. This isn’t just good news; it’s the best news. I wasn’t happy that he’d erred, but it was incredibly refreshing to watch Obama make the talk show rounds last week, saying again and again, “I screwed up” (regarding the Daschle nomination). In three short weeks, he has displayed more humility than the entire Bush administration-combined-did in eight seemingly endless years.
Obama is not perfect and-contrary to what you’ve seen or read in Rolling Stone-he’s certainly not the Messiah. The nice thing is, he knows it. He knows that God didn’t handpick him for the White House; it was the American people. He knows that he’s going to screw up more than once and, at some point during his term(s), probably royally.
What’s so encouraging is that for the first time in at least 16 years, we have a President who isn’t too stubborn, stupid or proud to admit when he’s done something wrong.
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Feb 13 2009. Filed under Opinion.
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