Obama's Culpability: His to Make or Break

Well, someone had to do it. Someone had to finally get people out and Ba-Rock the Vote, as so many inept politicians before had attempted in the decades prior to 2008. The victory was clear, decisive, and wildly popular: Barack Obama is to become the 44th president of the United States. The fanfare associated with the inception of the very first African-American president is not only appropriate, but required.

But the roads will not prove to be so golden along the way in the next four years.

And while certainly challenging, Obama will have to do less of the talking which makes him so appealing and more of the walking that he has promised his country he would do, without having demonstrated a lot of it in his prior experiences. But no one will have more power than he to squeeze every drop of potential out of his administration.

So for better or for worse, these next four years are all Obama's to make or break. And if there's less making than breaking, the fault cannot be laid at the feet of outgoing President Bush.

Granted, Obama is inheriting an unprecedented burden. Two wars with one over-arching theme of eliminating terrorism coupled with an economy that seems to be "inconsistent" at best would be a challenge for anyone. But blaming the previous administration for one's woes is worthless. It gets nothing positive done but it is also, frankly, something that Bush did to absolutely no avail. Bush lamented the Clinton administration for a majority of his initial hiccups, and went about scrapping everything that Clinton hadn't nailed down in his eight years.

And look where that got Bush. Bush eliminated every stick of infrastructure of the executive branch prior to his arrival and I would argue thusly struggled. The Obama camp currently has plans to do this, or so I hear and speculate, but were I an adviser, I might hold off. It's just weak sauce.

Obama is a powerful personality. But a majority of his power does not lie in that trademark grin of his, or his oratory skills, but rather his control of both the House and the Senate. Obama has two of the three branches of government in the palm of his hand. It should be mentioned that Bush also had party favoritism when he was elected, as well as six years of his eight year tenure. But the division in Congress was much more even, so a GOP-romp was impossible whereas a Democratic free-for-all is a very real possibility.

Those recounts and run-off elections? Like Al Franken's in Minnesota? Those do matter, because Democrats are very nearly close to a filibuster-proof legislative period that would allow for most of their bills to pass unscathed, unopposed, and unchecked by the right. Now the past two elections have certainly been a mandate by the public for more Democratic legislation, but there needs to be some sort of disparity, some sort of discourse between parties. This is still a center-right country, and if Obama thinks that he can use majority rule tactics, he will most likely be treated similarly to Clinton in 1994 and Bush in 2006, both mid-term election domination by the opposing party.

Obama has an opportunity to be a transformational president, if only he follows through with the assurances he gave on his campaign stumps. I noticed a bit of his acceptance speech on Nov. 4th, something that makes me take notice, wary against a preceding-president backlash I see on the horizon:

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. -Barack Obama

The tail end of his message spells hope, while the first spells out "get out of jail free," or a "rebuilding year," to use a sports phrase. And I certainly agree with that. However, I believe that whether or not his first term is a success lies on his shoulders, rather than on Bush's.

Call this what you will, but I'll call it a preemptive attack on using a weak previous leader as a crutch. The end result would just be that: weak.

An Optimist's Guide to Bush's Legacy

Here's the bottom line: George W. Bush has not been good for business.

He is terribly unpopular, especially regarding Iraq, and his approval ratings have been in a tailspin since 2004. These dismal numbers have been reflected in not one, but two elections, with Democratic sweeps in 2006 and 2008. His beloved GOP has all but abandoned him, keeping him out entirely of the Republican Convention and only mentioning his name with the caveat "I'm not him."

I would very cautiously argue, however, that history may be kinder to him than the present.

I'm not saying he's a good president now, to do so would toss any semblance of political or journalistic credibility overboard. But I am claiming that there may be a potential upswing of favorable remembrances for W. And let me constrain myself to say that I do not believe that there is any way history will ever remember him as a great president; his potential, in my opinion, can only lift him from the ranks of 'bad president' to 'not bad president.'

We cannot deny Bush's handling of the Iraq War, which most would say was altogether disastrous. Faulty intelligence showed that there were W.M.D.'s in Iraq and that they were indeed a viable threat to the United States. Granted, it wasn't Bush telling himself there were weapons there, it was the hitherto reliable intelligence agencies who were, but Bush really dropped the ball on this one. W. used the same bull-headed tactics that had done so well for him in Afghanistan (or had been doing well for him), when all he needed to do was let diplomacy run its course.

Speaking of bull-headed, his abandoning of conservative principles was offensive to conservatives. For a party whose primary figurehead, Ronald Reagan, called for limited government, one would think that this president would not be one of the most government-expanding and empowering presidents since Lyndon Baines Johnson. Au contraire. So not only was Bush losing favor with those who he regularly would quarrel with, namely Democrats, but he was also losing Republican comrades along the way. In fact, many suspect that the very ideological fabric of the GOP may have been irreparably altered, as 2008-conservatives are scrambling to appeal to voters who have sacked them in consecutive elections.

That was very bad. But, Bush has not been all bad.


We cannot deny Bush's handling of September 11th, which most would say was altogether masterful. Many of the idea-void individuals in the GOP cling to this day as some kind of banner of victory like someone clinging to an iron bar in a tornado, and subsequently trivialize Bush's actual accomplishments. Bush coolly and calmly went about handling the situation, uniting the country under one patriotic emblem. (SIDENOTE: That's not an excuse to trivialize Sept. 11, though. What happened on that day was God-awful, and to speak frankly about someone benefiting from it is unsettling, while possibly true.)

So, for now, everyone is down on this Bush fellow. Presidential-hopeful John McCain, who is about as liberal as a Republican can get, was hamstrung by any and all associations he had had with Bush, and ultimately lost the election. A mandate from the public against Bush, Democrats won across the board.

But let's say everything from now on, following Bush's administration, goes his way.

Optimistically speaking, what if Bush's Middle Eastern democracy-manufacturing plan firms up and carries on? Iraq has been making marked improvements since the ballyhooed Surge, and perhaps could gain self-sufficiency in the future. If the country is in fact better in fifty years than it was prior to 2003, Bush could be regarded as a national hero. That potential is certainly there, although it may be far-fetched.

Which are people more likely to remember, his blunder of Iraq or his grace under fire in September of 2001? A lot of this has to come from hindsight and hindsight alone. The projection is there, in fact it is all Bush and Heir Cheney cling to: "We are safer than we were on Sept. 11." Well, we've only come seven years. Call me naive, but I'd like to think that there are some safeties that have to be monitored for longer than that span of time. Maybe we are and maybe we aren't.

This could go in Bush's favor, or blow up in his face. If it doesn't bounce his way, it will be just one more thing topped on a pile of grievances. Recall when the economy - Bush's economy - nearly crumbled this fall? No one was any more angry at Bush than they were before. You can only be so mad, before it's just noise. It was like everyone expected it.

If it does somehow go in his favor, then perhaps history can salvage as much a morsel of dignity from the Bush Administration, which won't be much, but it could be something.

One thing is certain; there's nowhere to go but up.

The Palin Pick: Asset or Liability?

Hindsight is certainly 20/20, but in a lot of cases what requires perfect perception is not so much how one sees the outcome but the event transpiring.

John McCain lost the Presidential Election of 2008, as expected. But did he lose it in spite of or due to the biggest curveball of the entire election season? The curveball to which I am referring is Alaskan moose enthusiast Sarah Palin, of course. But the question is whether or not the pitch was a strike in McCain's favor or ball four with the bases loaded that sent Barack Obama to home plate.

I like baseball metaphors. Sue me.

Now, it's obvious that Palin couldn't have helped McCain that much, he did after all suffer a defeat. But looking at where she came from, who she became in the national spotlight, and then what she is today paints a very unique portrait of the Alaskan Baracuda. If not a portrait, a caricature anyway.

One of the reasons for Palin's preliminary potency was the relative obscurity from whence she came. From Wasilla, Alaska to the national spotlight in two years is break-neck speed. Her down-home charm was nothing but appealing. She seemed just like every other soccer mom you see on the weekends, except for her obvious aesthetic values. In lay men's terms, she was a fox, la renard, Babe-raham Lincoln, and a refreshing sight on the rigid arms of McCain.

She shimmered in the limelight. People had never seen anything like it. Among the incoherent ramblings of Romney, Huckabee, and Joe "Who Am I?" Lieberman, Palin came in from left field on a frozen rope. This fresh face was more than unexpected, she was inconceivable. She completely eradicated any semblance of a post-convention bounce that Obama was surely expecting. She dazzled the most casual observers as well as the most invested pundits.

Then the luster faded.

Staunchly conservative, she solidified an overstatedly maverick platform that needed no solidification. For nearly two years, McCain had postured himself to look more conservative than his Senate record indicated. He did so in order to secure the primary nomination that had eluded him in 2000 for that exact reason. But following his subsequent nomination, he kept pace with the new-McCain, who was far more conservative than the old-McCain and the attitude of the rest of the country.

Then came Hollywood. In no way am I advocating for the advancement of Hollywoodian political theories from the likes of Diddy, Lohan, or The View. But when the entire country is dog-piling on you, those are often the most clearly verbalized voices. I've often theorized that the writers at Saturday Night Live must be some of the brightest minds in the country, as it seems they are often the first one's to point out key character flaws in some of our most prominent politicians (see Gerald Ford, George H. W. and George W. Bush...Clinton was too easy). Tina Fey's striking resemblance to and dead-on impression of Sarah Palin revealed a lack of substance that had otherwise been unmentioned up until that point.

It's pretty bad when comedy writers don't have to add anything to one of your interviews and still receive a nation full of laughter.

Her interviews are part of what did her in. She was seen as a viable political candidate until she was skewered by the likes of journalism's playground bully Katie Couric, that bulldog. Speaking of bulldog, those hokey statements about canines wearing cosmetics and hockey mom's and Joe-Alcoholically-Dependent-Six-Pack or whatever that plumber's name was ran wafer thin after about eleven minutes. She was scored well in the swimsuit competition, but in the oral interviews, she fell down and out.

I'm reminded of a colleague's initial thoughts about the candidates' respective Vice-presidential selections. John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau and Stephens Media, where I work. He's a great writer with a vocabulary for days, and from what I hear, an above-average tennis player. His Aug. 28 column talked about the strength of Joe Biden juxtaposed against the weaknesses of Barack Obama. One of the most telling passages from this column talks of Obama and Biden's experience:

They say that Biden, a four-decades member of the U.S. Senate, will help Obama by lending experience. That is to say that Obama, in his own right, lacks experience. Biden's selection invokes a contradiction: Obama presumes to offer a new kind of politics, yet his first real decision embraces the very oldest politics. - John Brummett

Good points. Biden seemed the perfect candidate for Obama for all the wrong reasons. In his Aug. 30 column, Brummett then compares McCain's veep choice to others made by victorious Presidential candidates of the past, namely weak choices like Agnew and Quayle. He also compares Obama's choice to pick a "strong" candidate as it pertains to a poor showing by those candidates who had taken that path previously:

History says Democrats ought to worry whenever they find themselves blessed with an able U.S. senator on the ticket and get word of a Republican vice presidential nominee they've never heard of and whose selection seems an affront to responsible governing. - John Brummett

For those of you keeping score at home, that means if a VP candidate is stronger than his running mate, that usually means bad news for the presidential candidate. This seemed to be the case when Brummett wrote these pieces in late August, as Biden seemed to be the clearly stronger running mate of the two.

But the Palin pick flipped that adage on its head. As Palin began to surge the airwaves and internet, she soon became a much bigger name than Joe Biden had ever been, despite his tendency to have a hazardously explosive comment or two. It no longer became Obama-Biden vs. McCain, as it was on track to be, but it became Obama vs. Palin, with McCain being a wallflower in his own Presidential race. Brummett's observant theory was right, but the variables were switched with McCain's pick.

End result: Obama wins. Was she an asset? Well, McCain didn't win. Was she a liability? Probably not, because as I've said before, this election has been the Democrats' to lose since 2005 and I thought they could have put up a much weaker candidate and still won. But a liability? Most would say "You betcha."

So what is she now, other than a former Vice-presidential candidate? Well she's still got her day job, governing Alaska, and many suspect she'll gain necessary executive experience to stay in the national spotlight in the GOP. But she may be forever marred as an inadequate candidate, a highly-publicized banner of defeat that silently clamors "Don't Pick Me."

Only time will tell how she might parlay her new found notoriety; to be famous or infamous, to be viable or dead on arrival.

Obama's Election and Presidential Commencement

Commencement: The end of one thing and the start of something entirely new.

Last night's convincing victory over Republican John McCain was the conclusion of now President-elect Barack Obama's campaign and the beginning of what will be his Presidential administration. His commencement ceremony last night in Chicago marked the gleeful end of one thing, and the highly-anticipated start of something entirely new.

There's a lot to be said regarding the events that took place on Super Tuesday, many of them historic and compelling.

First and foremost, let me just remind you that I told you so, prognosticating an Obama victory, although it was not as I had though it would be. In my mind, Obama carried many of the traditional states, but his strength laid in his remarkably charismatic popularity. I thought if McCain had any shot at all, it would have to be in the Electoral College, where if he were to have won a majority of the swing states, and maintained many of the states the GOP usually kept, I thought there might have been an outside chance that he could gain the electoral votes necessary without gleaning the popular vote.

In actuality, my theory of McCain's Hail Mary were backwards, although it validated my original prediction. Obama had the electoral votes locked up by 8:30 CST. I was indeed surprised to see McCain doing so well in the popular vote. He ended up losing by roughly seven million votes, but when Obama clinched, that number was far closer, around only two million at most. McCain held his own in the popular vote, and in the election overall, both of which surprised me.

Speaking of Ole Man River, I think Johnny Mac ran a tremendous campaign. The odds clearly had never been in his favor. An unpopular president with an unpopular war and a palpable desire for change in the air away from the reigning party – his party – were never what John McCain would have called "ideal conditions." The fact that McCain's race was even this close is truly remarkable.

The concession speech McCain gave was brilliant. Granted, he probably had time to craft his speech driving from city to city on his campaign trail days in advance, but it was still a great speech. He congratulated Obama on a job well done, and offered his services to him as his President for his country that he loves. This was far better than John Kerry's pink tie affair, in which he "aww shucks"ed his way into trying to call the nation to unite behind President Bush, while his running mate John "The Continental" Edwards was still clamoring for a recount.

I can't seem to recall Al Gore's concession speech. I was probably knee-deep in some New Years Eve 2000 festivities at that point when he finally did throw in the towel. I'm sure it was as riveting as he was.

But McCain touched on the over-arching issue of this election, which couldn't be more apparent: Race. I'm not going to act like I am qualified – by maturity or experience – to discuss just how important the election of an African-American president is. It's monumental. It's probably the biggest event to come out of an election in American history. Can you think of any other election that carried as much weight as this single session of voting carried? No, you can't because it didn't happen until this past Nov. 4.

While I am admittedly inept to describe just how tremendous this occasion was, African-Americans on all of the major new stations were just as speechless in many cases. The phrase "Not in my lifetime" was uttered on more than one occasion. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who stood with Martin Luther King Jr. on the Lorraine Hotel balcony 40 years and seven months ago to the day, simply wept. But McCain, who had yet another difficult task in front of him, spoke with grace and conviction, delivering a spot on speech about the significance of Obama's victory, saying:

This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight.

I've always believed that America offers opportunities to all who have the industry and will to seize it. Senator Obama believes that, too.

But we both recognize that, though we have come a long way from the old injustices that once stained our nation's reputation and denied some Americans the full blessings of American citizenship, the memory of them still had the power to wound.

A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt's invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters.

America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States.

Powerful stuff from someone who was considered to be one of the most antiquated politicians today. Congrats, McCain. In your failed campaign, you have salvaged plenty of dignity.

Now on to President-elect Obama. While I am no advocate of this supposed "Doomsday Theory" that claims that the election of B. Hussein Obama will be the fall of modern democracy, decency and Christianity as we know it, I am still relatively skeptical of what sort of President he will be. Understand that this skepticism is in no way concrete, I just believe we don't know enough about the guy to say whether he's going to be the next FDR or the next Jimmy "Peanut" Carter; we didn't know much about those guys either, other than they were agents of pure change, and it's unanimous that they are in different leagues when considering who was better.

Obama has promised his teeming masses that there will be a "new kind of politics" with him in office and that he wants nothing more than to reach across the aisle with conservatives and get the problems fixed in this country. And while these are all well, good and encouraged, his record does not reflect this bipartisan attitude. He was annually voted the most liberal senator in congress, which depending on your view may not be the worst thing, but it shows his consistency to tend to the left with no regard of the right.

Now this election is a clear mandate that the GOP needs to get back in touch with the people if it wants to remain powerful (after all, that is the point of elections in the first place isn't it?), but if the collective Left thinks that it can accomplish much, they will find out very quickly how the American people react to a malevolent party that controls the executive and the legislative branch, i.e. 2006 mid-term elections.

This much is true: there is endless potential for Obama. For better or worse, there will be no one else to praise or blame for the ups or downs this country will face in the next four years. Barack Obama has an unprecedented amount of executive power, backed by a supportive House and Senate, and he will have to yield it judiciously. Despite the challenges this president-elect will face as a result of the administration immediately prior, no one will be better equipped to handle those challenges. The ball is certainly in Obama's court.

His legacy as the first African-American President is sealed. His legacy as a good president is still to be determined, no matter the pageantry that has deservedly surrounded his ascension.