Well, I don’t know about y’all, but judging from the body
language of the millions of revelers (1.8 million, officially, but if there was
ever an occasion for rounding up, this was certainly it) on the Capitol Mall
last Tuesday, I joined a whole lot of folks in this country who breathed a
collective sigh of relief that Barack Obama was actually sworn in (the Chief
Justice’s verbal gaffe notwithstanding) as our 44th president. Call me a worry
wart, but ever since the election I wondered whether that moment would ever
come. Was it just me, or did it seem like an eternity? Almost, but not quite, as
long as it took for the election to finally happen. It was a little like the
feeling I used to have during the lead-up to an important, pass/fail-determining
exam in school when I had a hard time imagining that the day after the test
would ever actually arrive. Surely, I thought at both times, the earth would
spin off of its axis, or some other cataclysmic event would intervene.
For me, nothing solidified the feeling of elation at the
day’s events so much as watching “Marine One,” the presidential helicopter, take
off from the Capitol carrying George W. Bush to his well-deserved exile wherever
it is in Texas (where better?) he’s gone into hiding. Once again, Gerald Ford’s
words upon replacing the disgraced Richard Nixon seemed so apropos: Our long
national nightmare had finally ended. I think, at the moment that helicopter
took off, I understood how the people of Uganda, the Phillippines, or Chile must
have felt when they realized they wouldn’t have Idi Amin, Ferdinand Marcos or
Augusto Pinochet to (as Nixon once referred to it) “kick around” (or, more
importantly, be kicked around by) anymore.
As for Bush, I don’t really care where he’s gone to live
his post-presidential life, as long as we don’t have to look at or listen to
him, ever again (strangely enough, the same way I feel about Sarah Palin), and
it’s somewhere federal marshals (or, at least, agents of the appropriate
international tribunal) can find him now that the time has come for him to be
held accountable for the many crimes he and his cohorts committed during the
cluster fuck his presidency constituted.
I watched, along with the rest of a grateful nation, as
Obama took over the reins of government. For me, the day was marked, and set off
in stark relief to the tone of the last eight years, by the grace and aplomb of
a bright, articulate, good-humored, engaging man who, at every step in the day-
and night-long process, exuded the kind of assurance, comfort and, yes, even the
celebratory joy that had to warm the cockles of the heart of even the most
die-hard detractor. In that spirit, I am even willing to forgive him the fashion
faux pas of wearing a white tie for the evening’s festivities without the
de rigeur accompaniments of a wing collar shirt, waistcoat and “tails.” I
mean, come on, Mr. President: cool and tradition are not necessarily mutually
exclusive concepts.
I can’t help but feel, however, a sense of dread at the era
we’re about to enter, not just for our country, but for Obama in particular. Oh
sure he enjoys an approval rating, coming in, of over 80%, and everyone, from
his most ardent supporters, to his most dedicated political opponents, seems
more than willing to pay lip service to giving the new president time to mop up
the various disasters he’s inherited from his predecessor. But the fact remains,
the confidence of the American public is his to lose, and that confidence may
well be measured by a “what-have-you-done -for -me-lately” attitude. Patience
and optimism, though apparently in abundant supply in the afterglow of the
election, don’t have the half-life of radioactivity, and can just as easily
dwindle if there are too few short-term results to justify them.
The historic character of the first African American
presidency presents many opportunities, but, at the same time, many pitfalls. In
spite of an election which seemed, by its outcome, to bridge a long-standing
racial divide, the fact remains that there are still many in this country who
harbored (and continue to do so) age-old, racially-based resentments. Just look
at the demographic breakdown of the voting results (and not just in many
Southern states), if you don’t believe that. And most African Americans will
tell you that they are held to a higher standard when it comes to achievement,
no matter the endeavor.
What that means is that even though Obama will be given a
fairly wide berth to implement his policies, his inevitable stumbles along the
way are less likely to be met with universal equanimity. There will be a
significant segment of the population who will take an “I-told-you-so” attitude
towards Obama’s missteps, and it won’t just come from rabid hatemongers like
Rush Limbaugh (who has already announced his desire to see the new president
fail), but from people who will view the occasion as the vindication of their
reluctance to accept the historic change Obama’s presidency represents.
I can only hope that the qualities that resulted in Obama’s
election (i.e., the content of his character rather than the color of his skin)
will be the basis on which his accomplishments (or the lack thereof) will be
judged, and that the era we’re about to enter will be marked by a continuation
of the kind of racial reconciliation the election represented, rather than by a
return to the kind of racial rancor the eras that preceded it did.
