Congratulations to the new-president elect, Barack Obama.
While Kate slept I stayed up and watched the election last night.
As a friend of mine reminded me, voting for president is inherently risky. Roll Call, an influential Capitol Hill publication, wrote the following about President-Elect Obama:
“After 22 months that he’s been campaigning, after thousands of speeches, dozens of debates and reams of position papers, it’s still not clear if he is a pragmatic post-partisan unifier or a populist liberal ideologue. Let’s hope he’s the man we hope he is.”
I find the last line particularly relevant. A lot of people, both in the US and abroad, have projected their hopes upon the blank screen that is Barack Obama. With two wars, and an economic crisis, (and if you want to use Obama's fluffy rhetoric, "a planet in peril") I do hope and pray that he is the man we hope he is.
Obama is a dynamic speaker don't get me wrong. But does any one else find his rhetoric cheesy at times? "We are the people we have been waiting for." If that's the case then why were we waiting? And, "As we breathe we hope." Maybe I am just too much of a realist. All this being said, I do think Obama has the potential to be a great president. He comes across as extremely calm, confident, measured, and erudite. All qualities that are needed for a great statesman.
Finally, I think John likes Barack. Everytime he was shown speaking on TV this morning John would turn and look and pay attention. He also was saying, "Ba, Ba, Ba" more than normal this morning, maybe he was saying Barack, or Obama? Or maybe he just wanted to make a sheep noise.
3 comments:
Let us not forget that Obama is very pro choice and as Christians we cannot accept the killing of God's children. Murder is murder and can never be justified no matter what Obama promises.
God is sovereign, and so we are not let down when our candidate does not win, or even when he does, when we should not be placing our hope in him, it should be in Christ who has allowed Barack to be president. So I was glad to see you congratulate him. Matt and I struggled with who to vote for and were comforted by the fact that our Lord sits on the throne no matter the outcome.
Dave!
I am a huge supporter of Obama. I don't agree with everything that he believes in, but I do think that he is the man best suited to run our country.
Anyway, I find the last line that you quoted a little problematic. Like you mentioned, people project their hopes on Obama. The problem is that many of those hopes are contradictory. The staunch leftist hopes that Barack will use his power to push the liberal agenda and make the democratic party stronger, whereas the independent or republican voters hope that he can bring an end to the partisan crap that is going on and that he will push good ideas no matter who suggests them. There are people on opposing sides of every issue out there and they all have their hopes for Obama.
To say "let's hope he is the man we hope he is," is to say nothing at all. We all hope that he is something different. Obama is destined to fail if he is judged by that statement. What the author means is "let's hope he is the man that I hope he is."
As far as Obama's cheesy rhetoric, he has probably just been watching too much CNN (Have you seen their series "A Planet in Peril"?). Why were we waiting if we are the people we have been waiting for? Probably because we needed someone to wake us up and let us know that our no one is coming to fix things if we don't get up and fix them on our own. We are all we have. (Bog, I'm starting to talk like Obama now.) It follows along with his grassroots ideology and effecting change from the bottom up. But yeah, all politicians get a little cheesy sometimes.
Anyway, I like the post and I'm thankful that you didn't go on an Obama bashing rage. Sorry I'm so bad at staying in contact. We should skype sometime soon. The time zones aren't so helpful though.
Kyle
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