The International Writers Magazine - Our Tenth Year: Reality Check

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The Change Express • James Campion The Obama Presidency Under The Microscope When the Kennedys rolled into Washington in the winter of 1961, there was some fanfare, much trepidation, and a long road of uncharted territory, but it was nothing like this. Cold War, Catholicism, youth, inexperience, and controversial election results aside; what Barack Obama walks into now is beyond anything Saucy Jack had to experience.

It is quite simply unprecedented. Some of it is good; he is the first candidate since Ronald Reagan to win a significant victory with the "new" credential tag, he has the majority of the country's demand for "change" in his back pocket, and is following a disastrous predecessor. The rest of it is bad, really bad; a stretched military on two fronts abroad and a broken economy the likes of which has not been seen in over half a century at home.
    Pressure.
    If the inauguration week was not enough of a pressure-cooker, wherein a tsunami of ethnic, special interest, celebrity and counter-culture voting blocks exposed their nerve endings over days of hyperbolic pomp, then the first hours on the job with nearly every single move dissected and analyzed should do it. The most asinine minutia surrounding a second "swearing in" for what the administration has called an "abundance of caution", which ended in the predictably ridiculous harping on all-things Bible.

    There is not much argument that even in its first hours, this is a presidency like none other, and not because the commander-in-chief is the most inexperienced since Abraham Lincoln or the first truly Liberal or obviously the first African-American, but because the Information Age, which has threatened to break down the doors of governance for decades, is in full swing. But what do you expect from a 24-Hour harangue of sound bites, borrowed clips and endless chatter on some ten year-old falling down a well in Fargo? When real news hits we need updates, explanations and scrutiny.
    Pressure.
    Big time.

    Can you imagine if in the first ten months of The Change Express we're attacked or if the new guy dares solicit blowjobs from the help? Not on your life, fella. Barack Obama can do nothing wrong, save his decision-making, which is always up for fair debate. But pulling an Iran-Contra or a "Read my lips" moment is hardly an option here. Not this time, and not now. What were considered nothing more than carefully structured mea culpas from Big Bill and a colossal host of "disappointments" for Captain Shoo-In will be nothing short of catastrophes for Joe Cool.
    This is what happens when an entire generation goes bust. The Boomers were supposed to "change" everything, but instead ushered The Sixties well into the 21st century with the Clinton and Bush failures. The chasm caused by the Kennedy/Nixon battle, up through the culture wars, civil rights marches and women's movement, to the interminably long and outlandishly criminal Viet Nam conflict muddied their political genes; a divided country for forty-plus years culminating in the closest most contested and ambiguously decided national elections in U.S. history. So now here comes Joe Cool, not only a new ethnic face, a new ideological face, he is the face of a new and untested, unblemished generation.
    Pressure.

    This is why the pragmatic, almost robotic nature of Obama has been on display the second his ass hit the Oval Office chair. Beginning the Gitmo shutdown and outlawing any mode of torture, freezing government pay, banning members of his administration from lobbying, and expanding the parameters of the Freedom of Information Act amounts to more than a fair start. It certainly beats the hell out of minor tax cuts and midnight basketball. But if every president is judged on whom he chooses to accompany him on the ride, there is already much to deconstruct.
    Firstly, the president's cabinet is anything but Liberal or big government. Instead it is pockmarked with moderate Democrats and Republicans and even one former Bushie. The alarming preponderance of ex-Clinton types mock the "change" mantra, but appears as the lesser of the possible evils for the nagging "experience issue". The best that can be said about this assemblage is its blatant ignoring of southern accents.

    However, a few specifics offer red-faced embarrassment and outright Sarah Palin lack of vetting. Most pressing is the appointment of Hillary Clinton to Secretary of State, which by any measure of objectivity reeks of political expediency and Democratic cronyism. And speaking of Clinton nightmares, the Eric Holder choice for attorney general with the stink of the abominably wretched Marc Rich pardon on him does not make it easy to forget the eventually disgraced John Ashcroft having once been bested by a dead man. And let's just call tabbing Tim Geithner, a smarmy tax evader, for Treasury Secretary a bad joke and be done with it.

    Call them hiccups or screw-ups based on your side of the ideological fence, but agree that they will not go away. These people, Joe Cool's people, cannot be inept or sneaky or politically motivated or self-righteous or act merely out of self-preservation. They MUST function. This is not a rehearsal or a test or a weird kind of experiment. Barack Obama is the leader of the free world in a time when for the first time the United States of America is weaker economically, militarily, and ideologically than it has been since its great leap fifty years ago.
    Excuses are past for dupes, half-ass types with insider connections, or daddy's gaggle of mutants mucking up the joint. This is not the deal we signed on for, Mr. Obama. No surprises. No bate and switch. No mediocrity. No quarter.
    First time. One time. Every time.
    Pressure.

© James Campion Jan 23 2009
realitycheck@jamescampion.com

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