I like Barack Obama. I voted for him. I'll do so again. I also think that primarying the man, or withholding support from his campaign, is the most stunningly idiotic idea since Ralph Nader came up with his 2000 campaign. And I'm completely unapologetic about any of that.
So what's my deal?
Easy. First off, I'm gay, and have an incurable disease. Thanks to the Obama administration, my boyfriend has the guaranteed right to visit me in the hospital if I ever become sick again, and no insurance company can deny me coverage. That's pretty damned cool in my book.
Second, I spent most of my life as an ex-pat. I grew up in the U.S. military. And I can tell you that I was never ashamed of my country, not even when Reagan was President (I was too young to really understand what was going on behind that sunny smile). All that changed almost overnight when George Bush got handed the White House. I didn't even travel overseas during his time in office, because I was too damned ashamed. You know who turned that around? Barack Obama. Thanks to Barack, I can go to Paris again without having to pretend I'm Canadian or British.
Third, I'm a New Yorker. I was at home having my morning coffee when some assholes from the Middle East flew planes into the World Trade Center. Front row seats, ladies and gentlemen. Who had really deep business relationships with the home countries and governments of said assholes? George Bush and his puppet master, one Dick Cheney, that's who. Who doesn't have those relationships? That's right again, the guy whose name means 'Lightning' in Arabic and Hebrew, and who has all the right people freaking out that he's supposedly from Kenya and a secret Muslim to boot, because that would be such a terrible thing. Fuck them.
Fourth, since I just mentioned Ronald Reagan and that incurable disease, do you know who let that spiral out of control and kill tens of thousands of innocent Americans, people like me? Bingo: Ronald Fucking Reagan. "Who's responsible for the decline of the American middle class for $500, Pat?" Reagan. Fuck him too.
Fifth, circling back to Barack, let me just point out that I'm a white guy. Probably as white as you can get. When I was growing up, the idea of an African-American in the Oval Office was the stuff of fantasy, reserved for cheesy disaster movies. Now, voila, there's a black man in the White House who's not a porter or a dishwasher. This matters to me, because it means that my very hypothetical kids and my existing nieces and nephews will grow up in a country where this is not just possible, but normal. That's the American Dream, folks, everything that is good and right about this country.
I could go on; that in a political class bought and paid for by campaign donations and lucrative sinecures post-office, Obama went into the trenches as a community organizer. There's no money in that, last I checked. That the man has by all accounts a happy marriage and two gorgeous little girls who don't throw up outside of New York City clubs or have their own kids with some boy bimbo before they find Jesus. That when the man gives an address out of the Oval, I don't cringe with embarrassment. That he has better things to do with his time than clearing brush on a fake toy ranch in Texas.
So why, when I log on to Daily Kos, is this a controversial stance? Why all the palpable discontent with the man? Discontent among people I like and respect? Why are we tearing ourselves apart?
Yeah, I get it: no public option, DADT and DOMA still in place, more compromises with the forces of darkness than any decent liberal can be comfortable with, the Bradley Manning fiasco, the list goes on. Add your own pet complaints, if you will. And I do not mean to minimize any of these.
The problem with this is twofold: one, we just emerged from an age where the American right set the agenda, becoming ever more radicalized in the process. They had Reagan, two Bushes, a pliable Congress, regardless of who held the majority. We all know this, and now finally, with what's happening in the Midwest, it seems the American people have had enough. Good for us; hell, great for us. But we've just started.
The other part of the problem is this: the sheer genius of the American political system has always been, for over two hundred years now, its small-C conservatism. De Tocqueville wrote about that. What that means is simply that our entire system is so well-balanced, so Byzantine and ponderous, that it's incredibly hard to effect fundamental change quickly. Remember Constitutional Amendments defining marriage as between a man and a woman or a 'right to life'? Didn't happen in the Union, did it? We didn't even get something as god-damned basic as an Equal Rights Amendment passed.
The teabaggers are learning this lesson at this writing, to our significant amusement, I think. And I'll confess I was starry-eyed when Obama was elected; I cried that night. Everything was going to change. Goodbye, cynicism, hello, Black Eyed Peas.
Well, it didn't.
And the reason it didn't wasn't some perceived character flaw of the President, his occasionally deeply annoying sense of moderation or what not else. It's because the system he operates in is not conducive to rapid change. And in a glass half full sense, we should be glad about that. Does anyone doubt that George Bush, in the days after 9/11, when the country was hurt and frightened, wouldn't have seized supreme power if he could have? He came much too close as it is.
So here's where I stand on Barack Obama: he's not the transformative President a lot of us hoped he would be. He's ameliorative. He's a good, deliberate man governing in a difficult time.
And I intend to work, and vote, to give him four more years. Because I think this country will be the better for it.