I write what I see. I just got home from work, and I picked up a crinkled beer can, a fast food drink cup, and various pieces of paper (oh, and one bottle rocket) out of my gutters. This street is gonna be kept clean, by-god.
Barack Obama is a great man, and he will be a great president.
Now, does it look as if there's a lot of emotion in that statement? Is there an exclamation mark there? No. It is simply what I see. I've seen it since '04, when I first became aware of this guy with the exotic name.
A great man is still a man. He makes mistakes. The difference, in my humble opinion, is that he learns from those mistakes, and he moves on.
It might be that the president is stuck. Some say his policies don't match his soaring (campaign) rhetoric. Perhaps. His actions may be more of the (democratic) same, that we have seen for decades. I don't know. I'm not particularly political.
Even a great man is still one man. There is a monster in Washington. It is old, this monster. There could even be a government within the government, and one man will not conquer it. But one great man can set in motion ripples of hope. Those ripples go out, and they touch you and me and the fence post. And after we get done crying about how "He's not doing what he said he would do!" we can catch those ripples, and we can by-god pick shit up out of our gutters.* (wewhodream is not in a very good mood, I guess).
Jimmy Carter thought he could waltz into CIA, or wherever, and demand to see all the stuff we have on UFOS, but was summarily turned away: "Mr. President, you don't have the clearance."
I see what I see. I would still see it if I did not like Barack Obama. It isn't about "like". I do not have blinders on. I am not as warm and fuzzy as I might appear.
I think Lincoln was a great man. I think in a lot of ways, JFK was a great man. I think Ike was a great man. Hell, my father in-law is a great man. My dad is a great man. Both my grandpas were great men, in their way. The next person who sacks your groceries...take a look...wonder.
You can holler "bullshit" at me all night, I don't care. I see what I see.
Greatness does not mean perfection. It means standing where others fall; witnessing what others overlook; hearing that different drummer, but not to the exclusion of the rest of the band.
* Metaphor.