Not everyone can become a great president

by artezworks | January 20, 2009 at 09:50 am

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Not everyone can become a great president. Great presidents are made great by horrible circumstances combined with character, temperament and intelligence. Like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln or , John F. Kennedy presidents need a crisis to shine.

This President (Obama) is one of the most intelligent presidents to ever step forward in American history. The likes of his intellectual capabilities have not been surpassed in public life since the Founding Fathers put pen to paper. His personal character is also solid gold. Take heart, America: we have the leader for our times.

This president (Obama ) is our last best chance. He's worth laying it all on the line for.

This president who in the age of greed took the high road of community service. This is the good father and husband. This is the humble servant. This is the patient teacher. This is the scholar statesman. This is the man of deep Christian faith.

Where many presidents were two-faced; publicly kindly but privately feared and/or hated by people closest to them, President Obama is consistent in the way he treats people, consistently kind and personally humble. He lives by the code that those who lead must serve. He believes that. He lives it. He lived it long before he was in the public eye.

President Obama puts service ahead of ideology. He also knows that to win politically you need to be tough. He can be. He has been. This is a man who does what works, rather than scoring ideological points. In other words he is the quintessential non-ideological pragmatic American. He will (thank God!) disappoint ideologues and purists of the left and the right.

President Obama has a reservoir of personal physical courage that is unmatched in presidential history. Why unmatched? Because as the first black contender for the presidency to win the office, Obama, and all the rest of us, know that he is in great physical danger from the seemingly unlimited reserve of unhinged racial hatred, and just simply unhinged ignorant hatred, that swirls in the bowels of our wounded country. By stepping forward to lead our president has literally put his life on the line for all of us in a way no white candidate ever has had to do. (And we all know how dangerous the presidency has been even for white presidents.)

Nice stories or even unparalleled courage isn't the only point. The greater point about our president is that in the midst of our worldwide financial meltdown, an expanding (and losing) war in Afghanistan, trying to extricate our country from a wrong and stupidly mistaken ruinously expensive war in Iraq, our mounting and crushing national debt, high unemployment, awaiting the next (and inevitable) al Qaeda attack on our homeland, watching our schools decline to Third World levels of incompetence, facing a general loss of confidence in the government that has been exacerbated by the Republicans doing all they can to undermine our government's capabilities and programs . . . President Obama will take on the leadership of our country at a make or break time of historic proportions. He faces not one but dozens of crisis, each big enough to define any presidency in better times.
As luck, fate or divine grace would have it (depending on one's personal theology) President Obama is uniquely, well-suited to our dire circumstances. Obama is a person with hands-on community service experience, deep connections to top economic advisers from the renowned University of Chicago where he taught law, and a middle-class background that give him an abiding knowledgeable empathy with the rest of us. As the son of a single mother, who has worked his way up with merit and brains, recipient of top-notch academic scholarships, the peer-selected editor of the Harvard Law Review and, in three giant political steps to state office, national office and now the presidency, Obama clearly has the wit and drive to lead this nation to greatness.

President Obama is the sober voice of reason at a time of unreason. He is the fellow keeping his head while all around him are panicking. He is the healing presence at a time of national division, and dire economic strife. He is also new enough to the political process so that he doesn't suffer from the terminally jaded cynicism, the seen-it-all-before syndrome afflicting most politicians in Washington. In that regard we Americans lucked out. It's as if having despaired of our political process we picked a man for president to lead us and that person turned out to be the very man we needed.

President Obama brings a healing and uplifting spiritual quality to our nation at the very time when our worst enemy is fear. For eight years we've been ruled by a stunted fear-filled mediocrity of a little liar who has expanded his power on the basis of creating fear in us. Fearless President Obama is the cure. He speaks a litany of hope rather than a litany of fear.

As we have watched President Obama respond in a quiet reasoned manner to crisis after crisis, in both the way he has responded after being attacked and lied about in the 2008 campaign season, to his reasoned response to our multiplying national crises, what we see is the spirit of a trusted family doctor with a great bedside manner. President Obama is perfectly suited to hold our hand and lead us through some very tough times. The word panic is not in this presidents’ dictionary.

America and the World are fighting its "Armageddon" in one fearful heart at a time. A brilliant leader with the mild manner of a country doctor soothing a frightened nation is just what the World needs now. The fact that our "doctor" is a black man leading a hitherto white-ruled nation out of the mess of its own making is all the sweeter and raises the Obama story to that of moral allegory.

President Obama brings a moral clarity to his leadership reserved for those who have had to work for everything they've gotten and had to do twice as well as the person standing next to them because of the color of their skin. His experience of succeeding in spite of his color, social background and prejudice could have been embittering or one that fostered a spiritual rebirth of forgiveness and enlightenment. Obama radiates the calm inner peace of the spirit of forgiveness.

We're about to enter one of the most frightening periods of American history. Our country has rarely faced more uncertainty. This is the time for greatness. We have a great leader. We must be some great people backing him, fighting for him, sacrificing for a cause greater than ourselves.

A hundred years from now President Obama's portrait will be placed next to that of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. Long before that we'll be telling our children and grandchildren that we stepped out in faith and voted for a young black man who stood up and led our country back from the brink of an apocalyptic abyss. We'll tell them about the power of love, faith and hope. We'll tell them about the power of creativity combined with humility and intellectual brilliance. We'll tell them that President Obama gave us the gift of hope and faith in our country to overcome great fears and improbable odds. We'll tell them about all the millions who stood up for change and won the day. We'll tell them that President Obama restored our standing in the world. We'll tell them that by the time he left office our earth was saved, our economy booming, that we'd become a nation filled with green energy alternatives and were leading the world away from dependence on carbon-based destruction. We'll tell them that because of President Obama's example and leadership the integrity of the family was restored. About how the gap closed between the middle class and the very rich, how we won health care for all, how crime rates fell, how bad wars were brought to an honorable conclusion with effective response, smart, tough, measured and, our humanity and civil rights were protected even in times of crisis . . .

We'll tell them that we were part of the unprecedented miracle that happened to our country those many years ago in 2009 when a young black man was our 44 president sent by God, fate or luck to save our country and that it's good to be an American and that anything is possible. Yes we can.