The election of Barack Obama has no doubt forever changed the American political landscape for the better. A man who is half-African American stood at the very building that was in part built by slave labor and addressed the nation as its 44th President. It will hold true through the annals of our history that no one can ever be told they cannot be something as long as they work hard to achieve their goals. It is a great lesson for our children and grandchildren, a true and distinctly American story of a nothing becoming a something.
This historic election ushers in a new brand of American politics and it is time to get to work. We have heard the soaring rhetoric, the campaign promises and it is about time the rubber hit the road.
Yesterday’s inauguration was a momentous occasion and President Obama delivered a decent speech with the saavy and brilliant delivery we have come to expect from him. On substance, it echoed his sentiments from the campaign trail. If you paid attention to the campaign at all, you knew what he was going to say and have heard it before- multiple times. Overall, it did leave me wanting more. I was anxiously waiting to be knocked over by a line that would define our generation in history for years to come. That line never came. While there were no ”We have nothing to fear but fear itself” lines (as I was expecting), I did find one line struck me as a vital and simple truth. When President Obama declared “the question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works” is key to today’s challenges. The age-old philosophical divide between Republicans and Democrats must be put on hold and together both parties should work to converge on the goal of driving a government that actually works. Discussion and compromise among our political parties would actually be “real change” for a change in Washington.
It is important for us to remember that President Obama is just one man. The rock star status and what I refer to as the “Messianic Complex” bestowed upon him by what appears to be a majority of the American electorate and media is entirely too much. I do not doubt that President Obama is a good man who only wants the very best for his country, just as outgoing President George W. Bush did, but to extol our current President to the level of demigod before he has governed one day as this nation’s Chief Executive is naïve at best and dangerous at worst. Big expectations lead to big disappointments and the tasks President Obama face are large. The economy won’t turn around as fast as Christians believe Jesus Christ turned those loaves into fishes. I reiterate, Obama is only one man.
I, for one, hope and pray that President Obama is successful. Anyone who wishes him any less is certainly no patriot in my eyes. I can see glimpses of the hope that he campaigned on and I do have a pretty good feeling in general about him- but questions remain. The economy- stimulus packages, two wars and Guantanamo Bay loom large over his first days in office. In the campaign he offered big promises. His large economic stimulus package will see challenges from both sides- conservatives who do not want to see the deficit become any more enlarged or construed as “government hand outs” and liberals who simply chafe at the term “tax cut.” President Obama has also promised to lead a responsible pull out of American combat troops from Iraq, re-focus our energy on Afghanistan with more troops and shut down Gitmo. There is no question that epic battles on the Hill await President Obama on all of these endeavors.
*Ding* – it is time for Round 1.
