I have to give credit to my husband for this one: one of the most significant things about electing Barak Obama is that we will have an adult in the White House again. We both count Bill Clinton in the childish-president category and not just two-terms of GW Bush.
It’s true indeed. And it is part of the significance of Obama’s power to motivate and inspire people. He acts likes the kind of adult we want to see in places of power: unflappable, thoughtful, a listener, hopeful, insightful, honest, intelligent. Doesn’t (just) tell you the things you want to hear, he tells you the things you need to know. Asks you to be responsible. Gives you the courage to take responsibility. Calls for a sacrifice.
The party is over.
Did you see Doonesbury on Monday? Hilarious. Too soon to link it here, though. Darn. Bush’s Roman helmet’s few scraggly feathers were gone and a view of the Oval Office showed it as ramshackle as an absent parent’s house after a wild teenager’s party. Or a fraternity house the morning after. Go find that strip in the library or your recycling. Doonesbury November 3, 2008. (And although I didn’t realize it until I Googled to find that particular strip, there was a newspaper flap over Trudeau’s preliminary Obama victory. Run it or not? The Oregonian, which did publish the strip was not like others, who did not. I thought Trudeau was cheeky on Tuesday, but loved it. Here it is, in case you missed it. Or Google Doonesbury November 5, 2008 and see evidence of the controversy. Ha.
But back to an adult in the White House. My friend Dale, over at mole, wrote a lovely personal essay that gives words to similar thoughts. In his usual smart and touching way. Go read that one, too.
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Oh, thank you, Deb! It’s funny, I just five minutes ago left a comment saying exactly this — “finally, a grown-up in the White House!”
Doesn’t (just) tell you the things you want to hear, he tells you the things you need to know. Asks you to be responsible. Gives you the courage to take responsibility. Calls for a sacrifice.
Exactly. What’s sad is that this should seem in any way remarkable. (Al Gore would’ve been that kind of president too, needless to say. Ditto John Kerry.)
It’s hard for me to think of anyone as malevolent as Bush being a non-adult, but no matter. I trust Obama and hope the support for him remains strong even when the reality of his accomplishments is tempered by the severity of the mess(es) we’re in.
(I also hope I won’t spend the entire Barak Obama administration with a spell checker that doesn’t recognize his name.)
Dale: clearly (!!) many are relieved. I bet if any of us Googled “an adult in the White House” we’d get lots of stuff to sift through.
Dave: I think you are right about Gore, and Kerry, too. (Although Kerry’s professorial-adultness is what I think kept him out of the White House, that and Karl Rove’s malevolent brilliance.)
Marvin: See my comment to Dave as to where I think the malevolence lay. But then, selfish children can certainly be malevolent, especially when they’ve been grown and raised in a family and culture of fraternity and greed.
As to our cultural and national willingness to sacrifice (when the reality sets in). I hope you are right.
Let’s petition MS and other programs to add his name into the library!
What I like about Obama’s speeches is how he articulates my own thoughts for me, like a poet. And he is a writer as well as a gifted orator.
He does seem to have that ego dilemma licked, doesn’t he? Maybe being sent from his mother at a young age, and never really knowing his father, forced him to see the world on his own terms rather than in light of a parent.
Both Bush and McCain have father issues. While we define ourselves in terms of our parents, either rebelling against them or trying to please them, we remain children.
“The party is over.”
I think it’s just beginning. We’re gonna have us a ball fixing the world. Or I hope.