I write this not to suggest that he won't be re-elected, or to otherwise demonize the man. I also don't write this presuming to be any expert on his history as POTUS.
Just some thoughts. Please feel free to add your own.
What's saddest to me is that it's quite likely he will be remembered most as being the first person of direct and obvious African blood heritage, to be elected President of the United States of America.
I find that sad, not because I wasn't happy when he got elected (I was ecstatic), not because I don't think people of different ethnic heritages should be POTUS (or people of different genders, or sexual orientation, or chosen genders either).
I find it sad because he really shouldn't have been so much about that, and because it's been so much used against him by the right, especially.
Still, he has done some good things. I'm not going to go and fish them out for you here; there are plenty of supporters who have blogged about his accomplishments from time to time, and you're all welcome to contribute via comments to this post.
(I'm hard pressed to remember anything good George Bush II (number 43, remember him?) ever did that was good for anybody other than him and his thrice-cursed cronies, though.)
But I remember things Obama did, and things he's worked to do, when he could...he has worked to some extent for the GLBT community. He has worked to some extent for environmental protection. He has worked to protect wilderness areas.
He came up very fast as a politician. How could someone of his background not want to go for the gold ring?
Instead, he got something of a brass ring, which is what carousels generally offer.
He will pass on by, even if he is re-elected, forgotten by many, especially in his own, forlorn country, with so many less educated by the day, kids in high school who can't place an individual country on the map, or an individual state in their own country.
But he will have changed some things that don't have to do with his having an African father. He will have changed some things despite his having an African father.
He will have changed some things, despite his having an African father, and despite all the pressure against him for having an African father.
Because he already has, and some of them are good. They may be changed back by Presidents in the future, but at least he's been trying. We don't know how much he's been trying. We should all remember that.
He's also, sadly, gone over to the dark side with regards to our bill of rights. We still are spied on with impunity, and our whistleblowers are hunted down like foxes, and jailed and treated inhumanely. We don't know why he did that. We should all remember that, too.
Our country is pretty much in the hand of the corporatists, and verging towards fascism. We should remember that as well, when we ask ourselves just what Obama has done that was so terrible.
Context matters.
I'm not here to cheerlead him. I never thought he was the best candidate.
But I never saw anyone who was the best candidate, because I've been seeing it all as a setup for some years now.
I lost faith before Clinton. Clinton turned out about how I expected, though I could not have predicted the details. I wasn't all that politically informed then.
I happened to meet him in Santa Monica, at the Loew's Hotel (sp?) My stepfather and I used to go there for breakfast. Bill had been spotted playing his clarinet in the balcony.
My stepfather and I were just walking into some kind of foyer, and there was Bill. My stepfather was just thrilled, wanted to go and hug Bill and stuff.
I let Bill hug me too. I didn't like it. It was fake.
This is the politician disease, I guess. Kinda like the wetiko disease.
Where do we go from here? I don't know. But I do know that we won't go anywhere helpful if we don't speak honestly.
The Democratic Party isn't about to just drop dead. It's got way too much inertial mass for that.
So, we can either just sit here and watch it die, or go do something else, or try to work on redefining it, with some sympathy towards those who have worked themselves up to the top are up against...or might be up against.
Best to you all.
Miep