The faintest hint of summer was in the air during today’s afternoon run. Seattle is temperate enough that I often catch a whiff of summer in mid-January. Still, today’s scent, the feel of warm wind on my skin - it’s energizing freshness was in part internal. We have a new president. He’s eloquent and smart. He’s a true believer type, the kind of naïf at whom I would cynically sneer in years past. But I see myself in Barack Obama’s bio: His dad was a foreigner, whom he didn’t truly know. He was raised by his single mom. He was a chronic outsider with a funny name. His mom was an anthropologist. I’m an anthropologist, for godsakes!
To millions of xenophobic and even racist Americans, who visit the third world not at all or only when they can get back on the Royal Caribbean cruise ship before sundown, Obama’s name, his Indonesian upbringing, his Kenyan dad – they made him strange and exotic, an unknown quantity. All of these things helped me identify more strongly with this presidential candidate, for the first time in my life. Complexion notwithstanding, I have more in common with Barack Obama than I ever will with George W Bush, the blueblood heir who could barely hold the silver spoon out of his mouth long enough to say something stupid, and say it with grammar that sounded as though it had been waterboarded. ‘Torture memo,’ indeed. More like tortured memo.
Bush and Barack are a study in contrasts. I’m not sure why Bush sought the white house. In Barack Obama, you see a driven man who worked his way to the top. Likely because of this, he truly does believe in America’s promise. His faith in our country is viscerally evident. Bush, the purported man of faith, came across as truly disinterested. I watched him fly away in a helicopter and thought little more than ‘good riddance.’ Ok, I thought more than that, but it’s not really printable here. And yet, from everything I’ve read and seen, there will be no revelation, no remorse. Bush is impervious and clueless to the end. I suppose if you don’t read the morning newspaper, as Bush reportedly doesn’t, it would be hard to know that 80% of the country would like to see you tarred and feathered, with a side of extra tar, please. It’s as if a modern Dickens had rewritten ‘A Christmas Carol’ such that Scrooge wakes up, rolls over, and says “screw you ghosts of past, present and future, I’m the decider!”*
Barack Obama, a man of ideas, introspection and great oration, stood and delivered a fantastic speech, and Bush sat at his side, those narrow eyes growing more vacuous by the minute. Was he thinking, “wow, this guy is so smart, how come I can’t write speeches like that?” No. How about: “ wow, where does he get his ideas and his inspiring tone? “ No. Bush is so incurious and unaware, he was likely thinking, “wow, that’s a great suit.”
To millions of xenophobic and even racist Americans, who visit the third world not at all or only when they can get back on the Royal Caribbean cruise ship before sundown, Obama’s name, his Indonesian upbringing, his Kenyan dad – they made him strange and exotic, an unknown quantity. All of these things helped me identify more strongly with this presidential candidate, for the first time in my life. Complexion notwithstanding, I have more in common with Barack Obama than I ever will with George W Bush, the blueblood heir who could barely hold the silver spoon out of his mouth long enough to say something stupid, and say it with grammar that sounded as though it had been waterboarded. ‘Torture memo,’ indeed. More like tortured memo.
Bush and Barack are a study in contrasts. I’m not sure why Bush sought the white house. In Barack Obama, you see a driven man who worked his way to the top. Likely because of this, he truly does believe in America’s promise. His faith in our country is viscerally evident. Bush, the purported man of faith, came across as truly disinterested. I watched him fly away in a helicopter and thought little more than ‘good riddance.’ Ok, I thought more than that, but it’s not really printable here. And yet, from everything I’ve read and seen, there will be no revelation, no remorse. Bush is impervious and clueless to the end. I suppose if you don’t read the morning newspaper, as Bush reportedly doesn’t, it would be hard to know that 80% of the country would like to see you tarred and feathered, with a side of extra tar, please. It’s as if a modern Dickens had rewritten ‘A Christmas Carol’ such that Scrooge wakes up, rolls over, and says “screw you ghosts of past, present and future, I’m the decider!”*
Barack Obama, a man of ideas, introspection and great oration, stood and delivered a fantastic speech, and Bush sat at his side, those narrow eyes growing more vacuous by the minute. Was he thinking, “wow, this guy is so smart, how come I can’t write speeches like that?” No. How about: “ wow, where does he get his ideas and his inspiring tone? “ No. Bush is so incurious and unaware, he was likely thinking, “wow, that’s a great suit.”
America, we let a raucous frat boy house-sit our white house for 8 years. He partied, rolled in a keg, bullied and fought his way around town, alarmed and annoyed our neighbors, and, in his final act as our station wagon pulled up into the drive, busted into the safe, spent our savings and pawned off our jewelry. The house is a mess. Time to send in someone to… um… to scrub the place down. Hmm.. making the black guy clean up, I guess there’s still a bit of racism in the whole thing after all. Ah, but this housecleaning is an intellectual and administrative one.
Obama’s no Christ-like savior. I have found and still find myself disagreeing with a number of his decisions and views. But, he got my vote and still has my respect, and I’m ready, as he asks, to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with those who voted against him, and get to work.
*Speaking of references to those pop culture narratives of greed and poverty/good and evil, I thought it hysterical that Dick Cheney, ensconced in his wheelchair and holding on to his requisite scowl and cane, bore an appropriate resemblance to the Mr. Potter character of the film ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’ Somewhere in Iraq, a Shiite version of George Bailey is sweating out a nightmare in which Haliburton has transformed his village into Pottersville. Cheney supposedly threw his back out moving boxes on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Uh-huh. Cheney hasn’t *had* to lift his own boxes since 1978. It was either divine retribution – an act of not-so-non-violent resistance on the part of King’s ghost - or I’m assuming he was forced to personally throw, into the bonfire, a box of documents so damaging that even his closest aides weren’t allowed near it.
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