Is President Obama, like so many political shooting stars of hope from the past, destined to fade from the scene as quickly as he emerged? According to Financial Times Deutschland columnist Ines Zottl, “Obama is through – completely finished.”
Citing some seldom-heard in English Germany prose, for the Financial Times Deutschland, Ines Zottl writes in part:
“A star burns out, and the world keeps on turning; nothing in life stays as it is. The march of time will dry your tears, too, even if you’ll never quite forget.” (Bergfeuer, A Star Burns Out)
Obama is through – completely finished. The unmitigated joy with which millions of people embraced the first Black president of the United States is gone. Shortly before the impending elections on his second anniversary in office, not even half of Americans think he’s doing a good job. The Arab world has turned away disappointed. Europeans are still standing – but the Obama sticker on the bathroom mirror is peeling and the little flag from election night has long been disposed of. The “world president” has lost his magic.
Of course, the change has a lot to do with Obama’s policies, which in many respects have failed. But it also has something to do with us, voters and citizens. A star has faded because we’ve turned on the lights. The Financial Times Deutschland archive returns 1,093 results for the phrase “hope carrier.” According to the archival software, that’s too many to display, so only the first 100 are shown. Among those is included the cancer drug Erbitux as well as the sequel to The Lord of the Rings. But above all, the results include many politicians who carried our hopes and for shorter or longer periods, sparkled on the political firmament: Tony Blair shone brightly and tenaciously before irrevocably vanishing. For a few weeks, barely detectible in the sky was Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan.
Hope is the first thing that dies. He who doesn’t deliver immediately is out – excuses don’t count. The fact that the powerful president of the United States can do little without a Senate majority is his problem.
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