Due to my worries about all the criminal Republican scheming going on around this election, I've been kind of a Bearded Spock lately, delving into some rather psychically toxic scenarios. I don't regret it - someone has to think about these things and prepare for them, and I've seen enough elections to know that just because you don't make the effort doesn't mean someone else will - but now I can honestly say that dwelling on them further in the next few days would be of no benefit, so I'm self-imposing a moratorium on negative thoughts about the election. So instead, I will offer my own closing argument on why Barack Obama is not merely a good President worthy of reelection, but a Great President worthy of the roaring applause of history.
You can find point-by-point breakdowns of this President's achievements in office throughout the Web and in my own offering, The Obama Record in Pictures, but no laundry list can convey the essence of how a leader's decisions fit into the broader picture of a nation. It simply isn't possible to encapsulate that in the sort of quantized information morsels we've been taught to mistake for real communication: I can tell you about war he ended; the industries he saved, resurrected, or created; the mass-murderer of 9/11 his administration found and killed; the millions of Americans who now have healthcare, and millions more who can afford it better because of legislation he passed; on and on - but without the connective tissue of context, it's just so much point-tallying.
The fact is Barack Obama is the consummate American President - a leader who doesn't merely give duplicitous lip service to the qualities our nation cherishes, but who embodies them in his own actions and way of thinking. He is the most thoroughly American President I've ever seen in my entire life, in the version of America that most of us would want to live in: The one where ideals and pragmatism, imagination and cold reality, opportunity and security, compassion and strength are not antagonists warring forever for control of our attention, but yin and yang comprising a single truth with the free will of honest minds navigating among them to a better future. Obama is, quite simply, my President - the first one I've ever had: The first one I've truly admired.
Before this administration, the loyalty of previous generations to the memory of JFK and FDR was something beyond my understanding - like a shining artifact in a museum full of mesmerizing but utterly foreign artistry. I grew up in an America where politics had become so debauched that it really had degenerated into a contest of generic consumer goods - the hollow DLC pablum championed by Democrats who had decided to embrace the horrors of Reaganism rather than fight them with renewed spirit and creativity vs. the increasingly idiotic and inhuman right-wing psychosis that came to characterize the Republican Party. There were always a few well-intentioned people on the left of the Party who diligently took all the right positions, but they never seemed capable of getting it together enough to really shake anything up or do anything with their values. They followed a self-gratifying script rather than leading, and that's still pretty much the story of the left in this country.
Then for a brief, glorious moment, I got a glimpse of something very different when Wesley Clark ran for the Democratic nomination in 2004 - something that looked, sounded, and smelled to me like an American renaissance - but that light was rapidly extinguished by an already thoroughly corrupt media that found such momentous substance offensive. But it was enough - I was primed to recognize and crave something more. Within minutes of the first time I heard Barack Obama speak in 2006 (IIRC), I knew that he and the Presidency of the United States were destined for each other - I just never thought it would be a mere two years later that he would lead the Democratic Party to redeem this country from Bushian darkness.
That meteoric rise from relative obscurity was part of the mythos that seemed to confuse a lot of people when his accomplishments were no more and no less than the realities of his office allowed, but in actions big and small, that same imprint of Something Greater was on all of his most inspired achievements. This Something Greater is not the exclusive property of any one person - not of Wesley Clark, not of Barack Obama, not of anyone else who it has ever shone through - but a sacred fire that burns in the hearts of everyone who truly understands the purpose and spirit of this nation, and indeed, at its roots, the nobility and aspiration of all mankind.
Call it the Light of Liberty, call it whatever you want - in seeing it in their eyes, it ignited within me and I finally understood what it is that separates a great leader from a merely proficient administrator. It's the same thing that distinguishes a great gardener from a well-designed sprinkler: They shape, and are shaped in turn by something greater than themselves in a living bond. You can see America behind Barack Obama's eyes, not merely in front of them as an object of desire or possession. And you can hear the life of America in his words, not merely as a word itself. But most importantly of all, you can see his sense of this country in his actions - in his quest for cooperation, unity, equality, and reason among the American people, even as he confronts an irredeemably corrupt and vicious Republican Party. What's more, he sees how this nation's noblest nature ties into the common foundations of all humanity, and works to strengthen our bonds with other countries and the international community in general.
We could all, in our layman's ignorance of government, imagine more dramatic progress than we've achieved over the past four years. Similar short-term disappointments have occurred with every great leader in American history - Franklin Roosevelt wasn't able to completely end the Great Depression even in two terms of the most rigorous and visionary programs ever devised up to that time, and none of them measured up to the hopes and dreams of the progressive activists who spearheaded them. But the people raised out of poverty by them are another story - they remembered and passed on quite a different history of the New Deal than the one people like us might have told. They did not see it as a bunch of half-measures: They were introduced to an America of hope, promise, opportunity, and common cause they'd never known existed before, and that is the history of FDR's vision they bequeathed to us.
So guess what: That is the history those saved, liberated, and empowered by Barack Obama will pass on to their children, not our ideological quibbles and "coulda-been" thoughts. Millions will pass on the story of having life-saving medical care for themselves and their children because of Barack Obama; Libyans will remember him as the American President who stood with them against a maniacal tyrant; gays will remember him as the President who opened the military to them; and all Americans who are not blinded by hate will remember him as the President who destroyed Osama Bin Laden in both body and legacy. Hate ripples out, but so does benevolence, and his gifts will never stop giving in the lives saved or improved, the rights protected, and the general prosperity secured for future generations.
It's a bittersweet realization that it truly does not get any better than this as far as Presidents go: When we're back to having to settle for ordinary politicians in the White House, and run profoundly flawed leaders with dubious morals and agendas for lack of better alternatives, then we will start to understand what Barack Obama has done for us and we'll lament and complain that our leaders of those future eras don't measure up to his legacy. But as President Obama has often reminded us, Change doesn't start or stop with Presidents - it starts with citizens doing things differently in their communities, being more involved, and electing better leaders on every level from local, to state, and federal. A President is just a piece of a much larger puzzle - a big piece relative to any other individual one, and a crucial stepping stone to many others (e.g., the Supreme Court), but still just one piece and, ultimately, one person.
That fact more than any is the most powerful of all, because it says that each of us has the capacity to elevate ourselves to be the creative force that drives our communities and our nation. Each of us can be the heroes that others look up to, if and when we choose. These are the messages that emanate from Barack Obama - the leader of the free world who never seems to stop being sincerely in awe of the ordinary people he meets, and respects the people because he is fundamentally and forever one of us. A vote for Barack Obama is a vote for all Americans, and really a statement of understanding of what this country is all about. E pluribus unum is a real, living fact, not just some odd phrase in a dead language on our coinage. Thank you, President Barack Obama.
PS, I would be overjoyed to see a second Obama term with a progressive, Democratic Congress, since that is when we would finally be able to resume the Change put on hold by the 2010 Citizens United coup and Tea Party insurgency. I also look forward to naming lots of things after him once he leaves office and becomes an elder statesman.