Obama and hope

In his GReader share of this article, George (DOF) commented:

I’m getting pretty tired of “Obama hasn’t fixed everything in his first year so I’m disappointed!” He inherited a country that was taking on water fast and half the body politic wants him to slip on a banana peel, and the other half is pouting because he didn’t shit rainbows on his first day in office. Forget for a moment that Democrats aren’t all Winston Fracking Churchill; ask yourself where we would be if the Republicans would start thinking of their country for one damn minute and stop trying to bury Obama. And ask yourself this; where would we be if McCain had won? Seriously, now… you think the US would be re-engaging its allies? You think there’d have been ANY progress on health care? You think the words “global warming” would even enter into the political vocabulary? And in a thousand other little ways. Grow up, people. Support Obama AND the Democrats.

I think that’s important.

There’s a hundred different ways, small and not-so, that Obama has disappointed me.  A lot of them are reflections of a frustration over the previous eight years of Dubya’s regime, and the desire for someone to ride in on his white horse, wave his Mighty Sword of Affirmative Fiat, and fix the problems of the world.

So I don’t like that Goldman Sachs, bailed out by the Federal Government, is now turning around and self-righteously awarding zillions of dollars in bonuses.  I don’t like that not only has Don’t Ask Don’t Tell not been officially repudiated or passively abandoned, but that the Obama DoJ has been actively fighting cases around it.  I don’t like that the Obama Administration is continuing to defend anti-democratic warrentless wiretap policies.  I don’t like that Obama hasn’t used the bully pulpit to whip the Dems (let alone the GOP) in line regarding health care reform.

Would I want the job?  Hell no.  Do I think I, personally, could do better, handed what he was handed Day 1?  I am exceedingly dubious.  Do I imagine that I have any grasp of the intricate and dysfunctional Rube Goldberg device that is Washington politics, such that I could actually make all the things happen I think should? Especially with a win-at-all-costs and damn-what-it-does-to-the-country GOP and a will-this-hurt-my-re-electability Democratic Congress?  Not in my darkest nightmares.

Which is not to say that I think Obama is perfect, or that he even agrees with me in all the things I wish he could accomplish if he had a  magic wand and could make it all be better.

But, as George says, imagine where we’d be if John McCain had won.  Or Huckabee.  Or Romney.  Or, heck, if Hillary had succeeded in the primaries. Do I think things would be substantially better?  Positively not.

Obama isn’t perfect.  But nobody will be.  I think he’s a lot better than the alternatives would have been.  And I think we won’t really appreciate that for another decade.

Hold his feet to the fire for our ideals, certainly.  That’s part of the dynamic of a representative government.  But I think it’s far too early, and far too unfair, to throw up our hands and give up on hope.  And, really — isn’t that just what the folks who we just managed to defeat last year want us to do?  And if we don’t get everything — or even most of the things — we want, right now, from Obama … is there anyplace where we could realistically ever get any of them?*

Like anyone else, I want it all.  And I want it now. And I want a pony, too.  And I won’t really be happy until I get it all, now, with pony.  But if I’m self-destructive enough that I’m going to turn my back on the man most likely to get me at least some of it, soonish, and the party that at least pays lip service to a fraction of what I want, then I deserve whatever I get from the other side that will be left standing.

And I’m sure I’ll get it from them — fast and hard.

*Please don’t suggest that if only Third Party Anarcho-Green-Free-Liberty-Hemp Candidate Rainbow Starshine were elected, I’d get a pony and a rocket ship, too.  I said “realistically.”  I might as well hope that the Overlords arrive and force us to wipe out hunger, sickness, and war.  Nor is simply giving up and turning my back on politics an option, because politics won’t turn its back on me. Realistically, the only alternative to the Democrats at this point in time is the Republicans.  As irked and dismayed and disappointed and infuriated as I often am at the former, the previous Administration and its successor candidates demonstrates the moral, economic, political, and intellectual bankruptcy of the latter.