Of Presidents, Politicians & Expectations
No one survives being president of the United States without looking the worse for wear, but comparing George Bush’s stock 2000 campaign photograph with the image above taken at a White House press conference this week is shocking. The man looks like he has aged 25 years in eight, although I suppose the more important question is how much we have.
I got into the habit of printing out and studying photos of the people about whom I was writing a few years ago. In fact, Osama bin Laden was one of the first as I tried to get the measure of a man about whom I knew next to nothing but whose name would be all over the next day’s newspapers following the U.S. embassy bombings in West Africa in 1998.
In this instance I taped the Bush photo over my computer (right next to a street map of Baghdad) and looked at it long and hard. What, I wondered, was going on behind the hollow, crow’s foot-accented eyes of a man who probably has always been the last one on the room to get a joke but has played an enormously sick one on the American people.
The upshot of this exercise was that I felt inextricably sad.
Sad for this lightweight who was so ill equipped to lead the U.S. into the new millennium, got such bad and often malevolent counsel in every crisis he faced (many of them of his own creation), has caused so much pain and suffering, and will slink home to Texas in a few months outwardly proud but inwardly humiliated. This is because he will know that he has squandered his legacy. And that his tenure will be picked over by historians who will conclude that he was a godawful president. Certainly one of the worst if not the worst.
That sadness eventually was supplanted by another.
Many of us are so caught up in the Sturm und Drang of the most contentious presidential campaign since forever that we lose sight of the fact that we’re merely bogged down in the preliminaries before the big dance: That on January 20, 2009, a black man, white woman or grizzled war veteran will inherit a job that under the best of circumstances would be extraordinarily demanding, but will be doubly burdened with impossibly high expectations after eight years of a president who has been equal parts inept, corrupt, arrogant and capricious.
In that respect, and despite all of the talk of experience by the surviving presidential wannabes, none have the experience to repair all of the damage wrought by Bush and his puppet masters. Maybe Heracles, but certainly no mere mortal, could.
That is why I believe that Barack Obama, who has the shortest resume of the three, nevertheless is best-qualified to meet my expectations. This is because he is at his best and most presidential as a speaker of hard truths. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton and John McCain are hard insiders deeply-invested in a dysfunctional Washington culture that makes them change averse.
For Clinton and McCain, the truth is an adjustable wrench to be set according to the political needs of the moment, and I am unable to muster even the most meager expectations for them to be better than the man they want to succeed.
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17 Responses to “Of Presidents, Politicians & Expectations”
Your post would have much more crediblity is you would actually reference a few hard truth that Senator Obama has spoken about.
Forced racisl busing has been a disaster in the U.S., but he support it. Urban inner city schools are a disaster but he supports them and wants to give them more money. Unlimited immigration has been a disaster but Senator Obama wants more of it.
Many too many middle class whites understand that when Senator Obama says that he will increase taxes on others to create more government programs that they will be the “others.”
And a man to took over a year to figure out that he needed to tell Reverend Wright to sit down and shut up really doing any of the hard stuff?
[...] Comments from Left Field wrote an interesting post today on Of Presidents, Politicians & ExpectationsHere’s a quick excerpt…without looking the worse for wear, but comparing George Bush’s stock … In this instance I taped the Bush photo over my computer (right next [...]
The picture contrast is interesting. Few things age one so badly as executive political power.
Folks on the Left mock Bush's description of his position as “The Decider” . . . but Bush captures the significance of the office well. Representatives and Senators can be in office for decades with marginal effect . . . presidents age badly.
Look at similar pictures of FDR. The Second World War effectively killed him. Lincoln aged horribly too.
In the Soviet Union the Bolsheviks aged horribly. A good proportion of the correspondence of Stalin, Bukharin, Dzerzhinsky et al was about their stomach complaints and health failings.
It is amazing that people want to pursue executive power so intensely.
Superdestroyer said: “Your post would have much more crediblity is you would actually reference a few hard truth that Senator Obama has spoken about.”
I must agree with SD. Obama has never been strong on hard truths. He sells hope:
Remember the lyrics from the John Lennon song…”Gimme some Truth”:
“No short-haired yellow-bellied son of Tricky Dicky's gonna mother hubbard
soft-soap me with just a pocketful of hope
Money for dope, money for rope”
I agree with SD and Marlowecan to an extent… but hope is good too.
Hope is better than war. And by the looks of that new aircraft carrier headed toward Iran, we've got PLENTY of war and very little hope.
I'm hardly a lefty, but I will admit that I would rather have higher taxes than an EXPLODING debt and war in several countries.
http://thepajamapundit.com/
Wright's outspoken criticisms of the United States have threatened Obama's candidacy. Obama initially refused to denounce his former pastor, but he did so this week after Wright suggested that Obama secretly agrees with him.
George Bush is who he is.
Obama has Hoodwinked the general population with his lies and deceit. His pastor of 20 years who performed his marriage, baptised his children and mentored the man would never say what he said if it was not true.
Barak Obama Agrees with the Rev. Wright but of course we all know thats not politicaly correct. So the question becomes what jokes Barak Obama will pull on the American public once an American Hating president emmerges from the oval office with his policies in hand.
The only racist in this campaign is Barak Obama. Barak Obama is who he is.
Neocon is who he is.
And America has payed the price.
Neocon is who he is.
Who might that be Davebo? Who am I? Someone who believes that Barak Obama is not who he claims to be suddenly makes me an evil person who collectively with all my Non Barak Obama disciples are responsible for some abstract price?
Because I believe that Barak Obama would not make a good president I am singlehandely repsonsible for the downfall of America?
Neocon for a handle seems to infuriate people.
Never
expect
objective
conversation
on
NET.
The amazing Kreskin. Capable of reading every mind except his own.
Reagan was successful after the Carter years, not because he sold hard truths, but because he sold hope. It was called optimism in America and the American spirit, but it was hope nonetheless.
Obama's appeal lies in his ability to counteract the deleterous effect of 8 years of Bush/Cheney fear-mongering on the American public's psyche. That is the reason for his crossover appeal to blacks/whites, Republicans/Democrats/Independents.
Our country is at a low point as it was in 1979- with our reputation in the toilet internationally, and the dollar at a low point coinciding with a credit crisis domestically. Americans have the sense that the great problems that face us- with the environment, health care, the economy and the energy crisis are not being faced head-on by our government.
Obama has done nothing to show that he's a racist. He continues to reject race as a factor and specifically rejects Wright's admittedly incendiary statements . What else can he do?
Barack Obama is the least-likely of the three to become a good, effective President. My party will be making a tremendous, quite possibly fatal mistake if it nominates him.
Neocon- You have no evidence besides your opinion that this is true. Obama has done nothing in public or private life that supports your accusations.
Most people in real life can be closely associated with at least one racist. The older generation of whites is notoriously more racist than the younger. I have a brother-in-law, a step-mother and a mother-in-law who are racist– does that make me one because I continue to associate with them? Its embarassing but sometimes can't be helped.
Neocon-George Bush and his party have ruined this country—his foreign policy has been a disaster for the US. The GOP leaves itself open to charges of racism by ignoring the black community and its concerns, in slight after slight, insult after insult. Obama is reaping the rewards of 8 years of GOP neglect.
“Few things age one so badly as executive political power.”
Clinton in 1992 and Clinton in 2000 — also from lively to prematurely aged.
Krit
Barak Obama's message is very appealing.
America sucks. GOD DAMN AMERICA.
Barak Obama secretly agrees with me. This from the single most influential person in his adult life by his own admission.
Sorry but guilt by association worked with George W. Bush. Its now going to work on Barak Obama as well.
That's not Obama's message and you know it.
Holly, will you quit pretending you're a Democrat already? I mean, Hillary praised McCain enough to show her true colors, didn't she? Admit that you really admire Bush and that's why you're so willing to vote for the man who has converted himself into a Bush clone while running for President. You love politicians who pander with absolutely unrealistic and deceptive claims like a gas tax holiday instead of someone who points out how foolish it is. Be proud of your stands.
Neocon- The reason guilt by association worked well with W, is that those defeated voted for his policies. That makes them fair game.