So What Do I Really Think About President Obama?

Readers of the Ivory Tower Pundit (and since my site meter went up in January 2009 that totals about 2700 visitors accounting for 6000 page views) can justifiably question my apparent obsession with President Obama. By my calculation, of the 32 postings I have published so far since I started this blog on December 24, 2008, 12, or almost 40%, have in one way or another commented on the President. That may appear to some to be overkill. After all I am not an American voter, and he is not my President. Moreover, I gather that some of you do not think I have been too kind to him. One person commented that I apparently dislike him; another that I have my own anti-Obama bandwagon going; and a third that my reference to the President as a "joke" was frankly not very nice.

So let me set the record straight. It is clear that the election of President Obama is THE story of our times. Moreover, the way the President and his administration handle the USA economic crisis affects everyone, no matter where they live. President Obama is a captivating, exciting and charismatic figure. Not only is the fact that the Americans elected a bi-racial person as President historic, but look at who that person is. He is young, cool, intelligent and a gifted speaker to boot. All other politicians, and certainly our Canadian leaders, are bland and boring compared to Obama. If the topic of a posting is the economy and politics, the subject matter of the story has to be the USA and Barack Obama. So I write about it and will continue to do so.

Do I "like" him? It might surprise some to learn that during the Hillary/Obama primaries, I was a big supporter of Obama. His poise under the enormous criticism from the Clinton camp, his speech on racism after the Jeremiah Wright incident, his refusal to play the race card, and his gift of the gab won me over. The Clinton camp's tactics disgusted me. You might recall that it was the Paul Begala, James Carville, Lanny Davis, and Hillary Rosen types who constantly brought up the Jeremiah Wright stuff, argued that Obama could not beat McCain, that he could not win over the working class voter, that he had no experience, and that he was not ready to be commander-in-chief from day one, although Hillary and John McCain were. They crossed the line more than once in terms of what is acceptable in a primary contest and seemed almost determined to ensure that Obama would lose to McCain, if Hillary was not the nominee. It was Hillary who played the feminist card over and over, talking about the highest glass ceilings, and coming across as some sort of new age suffragette. The suggestion that women in the USA faced bigger barriers than African-Americans seemed to me to be absurd and outrageous.

When it came down to the election, I strongly favoured McCain. This was not because I disliked Obama, but because I thought that McCain would be the better President. He was clearly more experienced, his character and courage impressed me, and he seemed more principled. I admired his willingness to depart from his Republican party when he disagreed with it, as well as his willingness to work with others and to adopt "liberal" policies, when he thought that was the right thing to do. I also had become much less enamoured with Obama. He seemed to too easily drop important "principles" when it suited him, he distanced himself too quickly and apparently without regret from previous friends and allies when they became a political liability. Where he stood on anything became confusing as his positions seemed to change so quickly. He was clearly a better speaker and debater than McCain, and probably a lot smarter. But he was decidedly less experienced and was, at least to me, a much riskier choice.

After two months in office my views of Obama have not changed much. His inexperience is his biggest liability. He seems smart, but not wise. Wisdom comes with age and experience, and he is not yet there. He is a showman and a salesman. He loves an audience, especially one he can dominate. In terms of his policies, especially as they relate to the bailouts and huge deficits, I do not profess to be an expert, but they seem, based on my reading, to be very risky and potentially calamitous.

I hope Obama succeeds in his plans to revitalize the American economy, because if he does, we all do. That, however, remains to be seen. I will also continue to be critical of him when I think it is appropriate. In his press conference last week, President Obama stated that he wanted to be judged on his performance, without allowance being paid to the historic nature of his victory. That is clearly what he is owed and what I will do.