Dreaming of a ferocious man who likes confrontation
by digby
Howard Fineman says that all over the world people are disappointed and asking “What happened to Barack Obama?” He goes on to list everything that’s disappointed people about him and why he thinks it happened.
I think this is probably the one that has led to these questions more than anything else:
Sky-High Expectations. Obama arrived on the stage with Kennedy cool, youthful optimism, Ivy League credentials and self-evident proof that America was overcoming its “original sin.” His life story was a triumph of multiracialism and internationalism. By his very nature, he would end wars, make peace with Islam, help the downtrodden and save the U.S. and world economy. These expectations (which he did his best to stoke) were impossible to meet. He hasn’t met them. No one could.
There was a messianic quality to his first campaign that was inevitably going to result in disillusionment since he is just a mortal man, however accomplished and intelligent he might be.
And many of Fineman’s other reasons were things that could have been predicted to lead to that disillusionment — like the inability to “change Washington” and “transcend bipartisanship.” The piece isn’t wrong. It’s just that few people would have normally expecte a president to deliver on all those things unless they had believed he was somehow super human.
But this I just find creepy, however predictable it might be:
His thoughtful, soothing, hopeful nature got him elected… But the world is under siege today, making it easy to conclude that ferocity and confrontation are required. His leadership will be tested in his last two years in office as never before. The U.S. does not lead the way it once did, but its role remains central and indispensable. “What happened to Obama” in the past matters much less than what happens to him now.
Is it really “easy to conclude that ferocity and confrontation are required” or is the Village searching for their more familiar kind of hero? Here’s Fineman after 9/11:
(11/27/01): So who are the Bushes, really? Well, they’re the people who produced the fellow who sat with me and my Newsweek colleague, Martha Brant, for his first interview since 9/11. We saw, among other things, a leader who is utterly comfortable in his role. Bush envelops himself in the trappings of office. Maybe that’s because he’s seen it from the inside since his dad served as Reagan’s vice president in the ‘80s. The presidency is a family business.
Dubyah loves to wear the uniform—whatever the correct one happens to be for a particular moment. I counted no fewer than four changes of attire during the day trip we took to Fort Campbell in Kentucky and back. He arrived for our interview in a dark blue Air Force One flight jacket. When he greeted the members of Congress on board, he wore an open-necked shirt. When he had lunch with the troops, he wore a blue blazer. And when he addressed the troops, it was in the flight jacket of the 101st Airborne. He’s a boomer product of the ‘60s—but doesn’t mind ermine robes.
Can you sense the desire for more of that clap-trap among the Villagers? I can …
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