14 Aug 2009 |
|
As the honeymoon, goodwill and euphoria that trailed Obama’s elections fade into the American eastward wind, the true disposition of Americans in relation to his presidency is being brought to the fore with unabashed veracity and frightening tenacity. We see now against the backdrop of these recent town hall meetings that are being held across the country that Americans are beginning to express their true feelings about a minority, a Kenyan, a man of mixed race not akin to the pedigree of his predecessors, a man not born with silver spoon in his mouth as George Bush, Kennedy, etc. As the old adage goes, when the wind blows all will be able to see the bottom of the fowl – the wind is blowing and we have seen the reaction of Americans to the presidency of the first non-white president. I should state that the hatred of Obama is as much racial as it is class and intellectual and often times the rationale for such venomous utterances as witnessed with alarming horror is disguised in the others, masking the true rationale. In my studies of American presidency as a political scientist, I have never seen an American president in the last hundred years with an IQ that eclipses Obama’s. He is by a wide measure the most thoughtful, most articulate, most prolific, most resourceful, most philosophical and politically astute president the country has ever had, not to mention handsome with a Hollywood grace and posture. While in other countries, such attributes of a leader would attract accolades and admiration, regrettably, Americans in general do not have much affinity for leaders that are intelligent or visionary neither do they append much value to oratory, finesse and tact. We do not have to go too far in history to provide evidence of this trait for in 2000, Americans elected George W. Bush against a Nobel Prize winning Harvard educated Al Gore, Congressman and Senator, a man whose father also served in the Senate. When juxtaposed on a stage for a debate, no one in sane disposition would prefer Bush over Gore, not when it comes to leading a complex and often confounding country like the United States. But Americans gave Bush the edge in a closely contested election and voted him in again four years later against an articulate lawyer, Massachusetts junior senator, John Kerry, who was swift boated into defeat. It is not coincidental that Americans flocked and still flock around Sarah Palin, a woman without much demonstrated intellectual prowess beyond the infamous gaffe of “I can see Russia from my house” as her foreign policy credential. A woman that at last earned a bachelor’s degree after hopping through five or six universities; a woman that abandoned her mandate as governor in the face of legal challenges effectively becoming a quitter; a woman clearly not endowed with any sort of leadership skills nor political acumen being lauded in serious terms as a possible Republican president in 2012. I ask then; how can Sarah Palin be lauded as a possible president of the lone standing super-power? But Americans are feeding into this frenzy of Sarah Palin for the White House against the evidence of her dearth of leadership and presidential qualities. It appears then that the American voter is often taken in by suspect characters of ragamuffin and dubious inkling as in George Bush, a self confessed drunk driver barely able to couple right sentences. And if we need further evidence of this affinity for mediocrity, then look at Dan Quayle, his father’s vice president chosen in 1988, who was the epitome of dim-wittedness of doltish excellence, a vice president unable to spell “Potato” when visiting an elementary school. In this context, therefore, Americans continue to marvel at this Obama-wonder, that a man of mixed race, a Kenyan for that matter, would upstage red-blooded Americans in the likes of Hillary (and Bill) Clinton, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Ron Paul, etc, to the mountain top. Any reason therefore would serve a sure impetus to impeach his stance and discredit this Kenyan of seemingly infallible aura. With the introduction of the public option in the health care dispensation in the country, many, unable to call him the name they would have rather called him had it not been for decorum, the Rush Limbos, the Pat Buchanans, the Lou Dobbs and others of like conservatism continue to brand him a socialist and some have even gone as far as calling him a communist. But what Obama is doing is to take affordable health to the poor and working class that hitherto have not been able to afford it. What he is doing is to ensure that everyone, every American has access to a sustainable health care and what could be possibly amiss with such a noble proposal in practicality and in theory? While this is laudable from an objective view, the reason for the outrage we witness at these town hall meetings stem from the fact that white America is not interested in the welfare of the poor and less privileged in their midst, the bulk of which are blacks and Hispanics; but what has not been acknowledged by these conservatives fighting against the president’s healthcare plan is the fact that millions of poor trailer-living ‘white trashes’ would benefit from this plan as much as the blacks and Hispanics. In essence, white America benefits from the tragedy of the masses and their inability to afford healthcare. When a black man falls sick and he does not have healthcare coverage, it will be inevitable that he empties his life savings to the hospitals, the specialists and the healthcare providers and we know who owns those facilities. In the event he does not have life savings, he would borrow from the banks and financial institutions to save his life – and we know who owns those as well? If the antithesis were the case, it remains inexplicable that almost 50 million Americans are without healthcare coverage and yet Obama who has found a workable solution to this unconscionable inhumanity is not nominated for the Nobel Prize. Obama with this common-sense proposal of a public option for healthcare has thrown the gauntlet not only against the privileged white establishment in the country, but against the well-heeled pharmaceutical companies, the drug companies, the special interests and the conservative right wing elite that benefit immensely from the maintenance of the status quo. Let no one be mistaken, those outrages we witness coming from mostly whites from conservative states and communities are as much a repudiation of the proposal as it is his intellectualism, class and race. With his ratings taking a plunging like a crashing plane, white America spurred on by the Rush Limbos and Pat Buchannans have finally woken up to the reality that power no longer resides in their domain, the first time in the history of the United States. They had voted for him in the frustration and hell that was known as George Bush – but now they have sobered up. What Obama is accused of – being a socialist does not vary from what George Bush professed to be, a social conservative. While they accused Obama of initiating big government with the introduction of the public option, Bush remains the catalyst for running the biggest American government ever with the establishment of Homeland Security department in 2001in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. This department now employs more than 15,000 Americans all of whom draw a paycheck monthly and yet there was no outrage.
The salient issues here are too grave to ignore and may ultimately be responsible for Obama’s one-term presidency as Americans have demonstrated a penchant for mediocrity when it comes to electing their leaders with the election of Bush as a prime example and the floating of Sarah Palin as a possible flag bearer in 2012. But Obama still has the coveted ace card and if he plays it well, he might be the hero rather than the villain just like John F. Kennedy before him with the campaign for Civil Rights Act of 1964 that liberated black and other minorities to gain political rights. Obama should work under this premise because his name will be edged in the annals of history if he is able to provide healthcare for 50 million Americans. In the grand scheme of things, anyone able to phantom out a workable solution for 50 million Americans to get healthcare coverage, a number that represents 60 percent of the voting electorate, should be able to secure their votes to win a second term. ______________________________________________________________________________ Article also published @ www.newnigerianpolitics.com
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
# 
# 
Your Comments
Please make The Square an enjoyable experience for everyone by refraining from gratuitous ad-hominem contributions, defamatory comments and off-topic posting. Such posts will be removed.