The “Misunderestimation” of Barack Obama
by Justin Schachtman
EIGHT years of George W. Bush is more than enough time to make one actually think that political leaders are inherently defective. The time during which Bush Jr. held the presidency was excruciating and it left me feeling like anyone who obtained the highest office in America would naturally be a bumbling boob. I’ve read about complex and genius leadership before, exemplified by Lincoln or Churchill; but, I figured that it must have been hyperbole, exaggerations… like Jesus. And then, enter Barack Obama.
Too often these days we, constituencies of our respective governments, receive nothing more than what I like to call rhetorical rhetoric. Rhetorical rhetoric, the art of speaking a lot and saying nothing. We all get a very healthy dose of this. In fact, I’m quite convinced that colleges are somehow training people to speak this way. You’ve probably heard it before: you call customer service and someone rambles at you for five minutes only to leave you with a dial tone and a marked absence of help (see insurance companies). Well this pervasive form of talking just to have been seen as having talked is concentrated at higher and higher levels of society like Mercury in the food chain. President Bush Jr. was riddled with lethal levels of this rhetorical rhetoric.
So it is surprising and even somewhat startling to live with President Barack Obama. Here is a man who can speak, and properly to boot; but, it appears additionally as though he has the capacity to think of things worth saying. To this end, I encourage people to read his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. It was an interesting speech not only for its breadth and scope, but for its nuanced examination of the paradoxes that exist within the human sphere of events. The President went to some length in order to describe his view on war itself: (I paraphrase) war can not always be avoided, and there is such thing as a just war, but in the end, all war is an expression of our own failings as human beings to resolve our difficulties through rational means.
In this expression we find genuine maturity.
Many in the Obama constituency display an impatience accompanied by a confusion as to the whereabouts of the great orator who so enthralled them during the 2008 campaigns. They are forgetting themselves, though I do not believe the President will. Barack Obama’s speech at the Nobel ceremony redefined his ability to talk about both policy and philosophy. Obama has shown that he can deliver very important speeches on a multitude of topics like the economy, the wars, and the environment, and he can deliver them primarily from the point of view of policy, not philosophy. People might want to hear philosophy because its juicy, and like a Rorschach test, they can read into it whatever they like. But by expressing himself through the sometimes dull but informative language of policy, the President creates a space for himself to express his deepest considerations through philosophy. This again, reflects a genuine maturity.
There is one more thing that doubters of this newly broken in President must consider. After all he has already been through, and all he has already done, he is only one year through a four year term. I for one am looking forward to seeing what Barack Obama will accomplish in his next three years.
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