Monday, 09 November 2009
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One Year After we Baracked the Vote...
This is the first of a little series of posts I will be runnning this week...
It's been a little over a year since Barack Obama was voted in as president. Like many, I stopped to think about how things have changed (or how they haven't changed) since that historic day last November. Sure I thought about policy, campaign promises, and all that other good stuff, but mostly I thought of how we as a public view our president.
There is a certain objectivity that is sorely lacking in most people's view of President Obama. Everything is so black and white (I meant no pun there, but if the shoe fits...). Most people's opinions of Barack Obama were formed before the election was even decided. These opinions solidified over the course of the campaign and seemed to be forged in steel by the time the election results actually came in.
By the time Barack Obama was declared the winner you either loved him or you hated him. Now please be clear that I am not saying this is the case for everyone. Rather I am saying that this is the case for too many people. As a result of this love/hate relationship, we often fail to see the whole picture when looking at what Obama is doing. We are unfairly biased to one side or the other.
Those who love him will say that he needs more time, or that many of the problems we are still facing today are Bush's handiwork, or that more is being done than actually is. Everything is unfair, or impossible, or racist. President Obama is your saint, your martyr, your shining savior.
This is not Barack Obama.Those who hate him claim that he has done nothing to bring about the "change" he promised so many times over. They blame him for just about anything that is wrong with the government and the country as a whole. They fail to place any sort of blame on the House , or the Senate, or themselves. President Obama is a socialist, underqualified, liar.
This is not Barack Obama.Lost amongst all of this hyperbole is the truth. President Obama is certainly not flawless, but he is also not Hitler. There is not yet enough basis to judge whether he is the best or the worst president ever. Chances are he'll be neither one of those in the long run anyway.
Here is what President Obama is;
He is a man who has the weight of the world upon his shoulders. He is a man who has been almost deified by many. He is a man who has had tremendous, if not unattainable expectations thrust upon him.
He is human.
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Comments (52)
Yes. Yes. Yes. I should have waited to rec this when more people are awake lol.
Wise words, wise words.
I agree with that. He's definitely human. So far his administration is going in a direction that makes me nervous, but I don't for one moment accredit that to President Obama alone. I don't hate him.
~V
On a completely unrelated note...
Dave, WHEN are you going to change that profile picture?!
Agreed. You're serious posts have been great lately. I've enjoyed them a lot, actually. :0) AND your profile picture makes me chuckle everytime I see it, don't ever change Dave! Don't ever change.
Very well put!
Well said, sir.
True enough. I do wonder why everyone seems intent of measuring his success so quickly... remember all the "first 100 days" news reports that came out? I mean, really? What OTHER president did we start evaluating after barely three months in office? Hell, he'd barely gotten used to the White House by then!
I agree Dave. That's one of your deeper posts :]
Oh I would have been going after any of the democrats and would likely have been really getting angry at McCain. The people I really dislike run congress and have been running it for years. Those most willing to just go long with them, are worst in my eyes.
It is all about the politics, not the one man.
I kind of felt sorry for Pres. Obama when he won the Nobel Peace Prize. The expectations people have for him are too ridiculous for anyone to bear. And his political opponents seem to have nothing better to do sometimes than make fun of his popularity. It's not his fault people adore him.
seriously. it's only been a YEAR. it took a lot longer than a year for things to get this bad. it'll take longer to fix it all.
@TheMarriedFreshman - lol. Today.
@ccarothers - Thank you C. I will have to change my profile pic though. I am starting to hate myself.
Thumbs up.
Yup yup yup!
Well said.
To show just how unserious a thinker I am, I'll paraphrase a quote from Transformers.
"Tell his tale to those who ask... tell it truthfully, the evil deeds along with
the good, and let him be judged accordingly. The rest... is silence..."
Agreed, people need to stop thinking the unhuman of him. He's way surpassed Bush, who could even meet his human expectations.
Nope. He's an alien.
Very nice.
Exactly. He's human like the rest of us, which I think people fail to remember.
Darn well said! And needed to be said.
@randomneuralfirings - that is actually a pretty deep quote from Transformers.