On Wishful Thinking About A President

TESTS OF OUR FAITH IN OUR FATHER
Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, pepinsky.blogspot.com
December 4, 2009
I was carried away by President Obama’s election. I allowed myself to hope that this charismatic, well-spoken young black man who promised so many wonderful words would live up to his promises. The president’s take on Afghanistan December 1 at West Point has finally brought me back to reality. Somehow, I had no illusions about President Clinton when he took office; he was slickly and purely expedient from the beginning of his campaign, when he made a point of being in the Arkansas governor’s house the night an effectively lobotomized black man was executed. I am chagrined to say that Barack Obama took me in. I shed tears of celebration as he announced his victory in Lincoln Park. I allowed myself to feel that yes we can! had become yes we will! If only wishing it were so could make it so.
Barack Obama’s considerable gifts as a listener/organizer opened his path to the White House. Now as president he uses the same gifts to listen and organize to win political battles in Washington. He works for consensus, wherever the least common denominator of consensus happens to emerge. I shake my head in wonder at myself for even thinking of taking a position on whether to vote for health care reform. WHAT reform? Is it going to be reform as in Afghanistan, where all the thinking is inside the Washington political box?
I won’t beat on all the ways that President Obama shows primary concern for winning battles against Congressional Republicans with his Senate ally Harry Reid. The bottom line is that what qualifies people for US national political office is how well they get with the political flow of gaining and holding votes, from congressional committee votes to votes in presidential elections. Anyone who has not cornered the market on political expediency will scarcely gain national office of any sort (how many Kuciniches, Sanderses and Feingolds are there in Congress at any time?), let alone be considered seriously “presidential.” President Obama has thus far passed the presidential test, spectacularly so. He does so by standing behind his advisers rather than in front of them.
On reflection, the anger and disappointment I felt when I saw the president looking his tv audience in the eyes from the West Point podium was really displaced anger and disappointment at myself, for believing that any father in Washington could significantly reframe political discourse. No president will fix things. I think Barack Obama knew that when he organized on the streets of South Chicago. Now he uses old ways to deal with powerbrokers instead of powerless people. In retrospect, I’m not surprised he follows his political habit of suspending what he believes as he mediates what others’ believe.
And so once again I have given up hope that a president will save us from ourselves. I’m grieving, but I think I’m about back to limiting my political aspirations to changes in political culture that spring of their own accord from the political ground up. Mr. President, I give you credit for working really hard at your job. I just think you’ve arrived at the wrong place to use your political skill to accomplish real change. But then, who was I to imagine that any father in Washington could save us. Love and peace, hal
TESTS OF OUR FAITH IN OUR FATHER
Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, pepinsky.blogspot.com
December 4, 2009
I was carried away by President Obama’s election. I allowed myself to hope that this charismatic, well-spoken young black man who promised so many wonderful words would live up to his promises. The president’s take on Afghanistan December 1 at West Point has finally brought me back to reality. Somehow, I had no illusions about President Clinton when he took office; he was slickly and purely expedient from the beginning of his campaign, when he made a point of being in the Arkansas governor’s house the night an effectively lobotomized black man was executed. I am chagrined to say that Barack Obama took me in. I shed tears of celebration as he announced his victory in Lincoln Park. I allowed myself to feel that yes we can! had become yes we will! If only wishing it were so could make it so.
Barack Obama’s considerable gifts as a listener/organizer opened his path to the White House. Now as president he uses the same gifts to listen and organize to win political battles in Washington. He works for consensus, wherever the least common denominator of consensus happens to emerge. I shake my head in wonder at myself for even thinking of taking a position on whether to vote for health care reform. WHAT reform? Is it going to be reform as in Afghanistan, where all the thinking is inside the Washington political box?
I won’t beat on all the ways that President Obama shows primary concern for winning battles against Congressional Republicans with his Senate ally Harry Reid. The bottom line is that what qualifies people for US national political office is how well they get with the political flow of gaining and holding votes, from congressional committee votes to votes in presidential elections. Anyone who has not cornered the market on political expediency will scarcely gain national office of any sort (how many Kuciniches, Sanderses and Feingolds are there in Congress at any time?), let alone be considered seriously “presidential.” President Obama has thus far passed the presidential test, spectacularly so. He does so by standing behind his advisers rather than in front of them.
On reflection, the anger and disappointment I felt when I saw the president looking his tv audience in the eyes from the West Point podium was really displaced anger and disappointment at myself, for believing that any father in Washington could significantly reframe political discourse. No president will fix things. I think Barack Obama knew that when he organized on the streets of South Chicago. Now he uses old ways to deal with powerbrokers instead of powerless people. In retrospect, I’m not surprised he follows his political habit of suspending what he believes as he mediates what others’ believe.
And so once again I have given up hope that a president will save us from ourselves. I’m grieving, but I think I’m about back to limiting my political aspirations to changes in political culture that spring of their own accord from the political ground up. Mr. President, I give you credit for working really hard at your job. I just think you’ve arrived at the wrong place to use your political skill to accomplish real change. But then, who was I to imagine that any father in Washington could save us. Love and peace, hal