Obama's Celebrity

(Ed. Note: Sorry, I've been away for awhile. You see how busy you get when you're trying to get a grant to write a book. If you're still coming back to the blog every now and then, thanks, and know I'll be trying to update more frequently, even if that means very minor posts.)

Barack Obama was inaugurated last Tuesday in celebration of pageantry that is peerless throughout American history. The first African-American president was sure to have such a homecoming, but the added personality of our chief executive remarkably almost overshadows the monumental achievement.

In short, everyone loves Barack Obama and it's social suicide to reply to the contrary.

I'm of that ilk; I think Obama thus far has done nothing to lose my confidence that he will be a competent administrator of our national well-being. Now, being the right-leaning moderate that I am, I'm not thrilled about some of the rough drafts of this stimulus plan, namely some of the problems with ambiguous directions of the funds and the majority of the money being held until after 2010. I'd go on, but the New York Times' David Brooks pretty much sums it up here.

But most people are not concerned with his politics at all, an odd thing for not only a politician but the most powerful politician in the world. Caring about his politics is sooo November.

I don't see his economy-induced furrowed brow spread across People magazine. I don't see the stern face of a man who is inheriting, as some would describe, the worst set of conditions an incoming President has seen since a Roosevelt first took office.

You see a big eared, grinning, dapper individual, clung to by an equally charming, Hospital-administrating wife.

Obama is currently the biggest celebrity on the planet. If he so chose, he could advertise for any number of products, or campaigns and turn them into sure fire winners. He could host the upcoming Academy Awards. He could likely challenge Michael Jordan to a pick-up game and win. It's an uncharted measurement at this point to determine just how much home-court advantage might play, when home court is the White House.

Those are exaggerations of course, but the point is true: There's no one bigger than BHO, in Hollywood or elsewhere.

My point might be this: It's a slippery slope to keep regarding our new chief executive in the limelight most often reserved for celebrities.

On the one hand, it is nearly shameful to say that this President doesn't deserve every inch of press he gets. He has the potential to be a transformative president of unparalleled caliber, not only a reconciliartory beacon of hope for race relations in the United States but also a genuinely good President who can shape the nation up in a way in which it has not been in nearly six years.

He's no mere poster boy. Well, he doesn't have to be, anyway.

But we all know how these celebrity stories turn out: Tragically. It's the nature of the beast to build someone up only to laugh and delight at their downfall. It's all very Lifetime TV. You see it over and over and over again; a celebrity rises and a celebrity falls. The question is, does this star fall because of their own flaws, or are they driven by the fair-weather public who judges their every move?

I'm inclined to think toward the latter, but I offer forewarning: we had better stop anointing this new President of ours before we end up running him out of town on a rail.

So long as he follows up on the seemingly-impossible task of keeping his word and fixing every problem the nation has (which he has done a good job backtracking from, although I distinctly remember the words "This is the day the Earth began to heal," after defeating Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary), he should be the conductor of the Gravy Train with biscuit-capped wheels, and I'm all for that.

Let's just not get carried away. It would be bad for him, and us all as Americans.

(For the record, I'm not saying that I think Obama will fall prey the mania that apparently rots such celebrities, because I think he's better than that. But his public opinion on the other hand could sharply diminish, a la Lohan, Spears, etc. In South Park terms, from this to something like this. )