The Elusive President

When Barack Obama ran for President in 2008 and then won, I was more excited than I had been since 1960 when John F. Kennedy captured the White House.

Even more than JFK, here was a man who embodied all the qualities I wanted in a President: high intelligence, coolness under pressure, a mesmerizing speaker and communicator, a strong moral character, a family man; he appeared to have it all. In contrast to Walter Lippmann’s comment about FDR having a first-class temperament but a second-class mind, Obama was said to have both. Author, President of the Harvard Law Review, professor of constitutional law, Barack Obama is arguably the smartest man ever to hold the office of President.

On top of that, he was an African-American, a dream come true for those of us who came of political age in the 60’s and were inspired and forever marked by the Civil Rights Movement and the example of Martin Luther King, Jr. Barack Obama was right out of Central Casting: The perfect man for the times, especially following the experience of the previous eight years.

Yet, shortly after Obama was inaugurated, a neighbor said of him: He’s too smart to be President. Taken aback at the time by that assessment, I did however recall Plato’s warning about philosopher-kings. A philosopher-king was the best type of person to lead a democratic state, according to Plato, but a person, he warned, who had the disabling tendency to ruminate endlessly about issues and not be resolute enough in action.

That same thought cropped up again in recent months as I struggled with my admiration and respect for the President and my assessment of his skills as leader. Equally disturbing was the thought: Maybe Barack Obama is too nice to be President.

Yet, we got in Barack Obama exactly what many of us said we wanted and now we are dissatisfied. We keep hearing in the news media and in our own heads: I wish he were tougher, willing to do the bare-knuckles fighting that successful politicians have always been able to do when necessary. His political opponents roll him time after time because they can, we fear.

Still, one year can be an eternity in politics, I realize, so there’s no telling what can happen by next November or in between. Maybe the President will demonstrate that patience and a continuing belief in centrist politics, balanced approaches, and compromise will carry the day in the end. After all, despite their giddiness over the debt ceiling “triumph,” the Republicans woke up the next day to find out that Congress had earned an 82 percent disapproval rating from the public. Which makes me wonder what planet the other 18 percent live on, but that’s another issue.

The President always talks about believing in the basic common sense and essential goodness of the American people. If so, they will wake up from this nightmare of savage divisiveness that has captured our political stage for the past couple of years and do the right thing in the end. That represents a leap of faith on my part rather than a conviction.

In the final analysis, how we respond politically over the next year will say much more about we as a people than it will ever say about Barack Obama. Yet, we are who we are, with the brawling, divisive, money-driven political system that’s been around for more than two hundred years. That’s not going to change. The President knew what he was getting into and the jury is still out on whether he is a fighter willing to mix it up for causes he believes in. It’s time for him to quit trying to be all things to all men and demonstrate that he’s up to the challenge to lead us where he and the better angels of our nature want to take us.


Gerald E. Lavey