Obama just keeps stepping forward

[frogmarch]

A lifelong friend of mine who now lives in England (she has dual citizenship) sent me an email she received from an English friend of hers who is touring America. Here’s a portion of it:

There is news from here -- but you know it already. The bill passed, Obama won. It may be a Pyrrhic victory yet, but it may also be a turning point. He always seems very Unitarian to me -- and he is from something close to our tradition -- eminently reasonable, mild, eloquent, rational, in the face of intransigence. We step on, he seems to say, one step forward and three-quarters of a step back, but that one-quarter of a step is at least forward. The cost is huge, and I have no idea what whatever passes for the public in a country of 350 million people, thinks. No one knows, the divisions are so very large. America steps forward, inch by inch. As I write, a historic day approaches that is so historic we must just step over it quietly: The 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination. We step over it quietly because this country is always on the verge. Always on crisis watch. And Obama just keeps stepping forward in his reasonable suit, treating everyone reasonably.

It was interesting to read her take on Obama, and on us as a country.

[frazzled]

1. Your friend's friend has an interesting and perceptive take on our country

As for Obama: that reasonable equanimity is what made me first pay attention to him.

I moved to Illinois in 2004, just a month before the election in which he would become senator of that state. (Gosh, is 2004 that long ago, or so little time ago?) A few months after he'd taken office, we happened to be invited out to dinner by a colleague of my husband's. As it also happened, I was seated next to the colleague's husband, who, as it further happened, was a law professor at the University of Chicago. So the talk naturally turned to his colleague, Barack Obama. After some comments around the table, I mentioned that I'd recently watched a hearing (on Iraq I believe), in which the new senator was speaking. I said I thought he'd been very eloquent and incisive in his questioning, if somewhat polite, but that I hoped after he'd been broken in a bit as junior senator, he'd be able to be more outspoken (or something like that). I recall getting a serious stare in return, with the response: "That's not who he is." Essentially, I was told that the eloquent, polite, thoughtful Obama I'd seen was precisely who he had been and was likely to be in the future, not some firebrand I'd thought up in my head.

So my expectations for Obama, when he ran for president four years later, were very different than the expectations of many here. I'd come to admire his equanimity and, most of all, his consistency over time.

Yes, it may not look like it what with all the craziness from the right, but we are inching forward, with no flash or dash, but consistently, one little step at a time.

[Skidmore]

3. It was those qualities of equanimity and consistency which led me to vote for him.

After the erratic and bellicose Bush years, this nation needed to be able to dial things back and to have a steady hand to guide us out of Iraq and the economic crisis. By in large, the President has been on target. Sometimes he's had to let things run their course so that the public can catch up. Sometimes he's missed a mark. By in large, he's been decent and steady and far more in tune with the populace than any president has been for some time. I do not regret my two votes for him.

[frogmarch]

13. Same here. I agree

with everything you said.

[Tarheel_Dem]

7. I think history will record his stint in the WH pretty much the way you've summed it up. "Inching..

forward" is seen by some as too compromising, but many of us saw the same qualities in him that you've laid out.

[frogmarch]

11. What a wonderful story!

It's interesting that Obama's friends and colleagues knew from the beginning that he would never be a fiery politician, but a thoughtful, eloquent one.

His calm, reasonable demeanor is what also first caught my attention and made me like him as a candidate. Although there have been times I've wished he would stop being so calm and just go out there and kick some republican butt, I think he's doing a good job, especially under the circumstances, and I too think our country is moving forward. Slowly, yes, but I think we're getting there.

[madokie]

2. I like it

the teahadist are trying their best to rattle him and its pissing them off that they can't. I love that our President is so calm, cool and collected. Unflappable is the word

[frogmarch]

12. haha, I know! I love it.

He lets them show themselves to be the fools they are.

Unflappable fits him nicely!

[monmouth3]

4. Beautiful writing also.

[Pirate Smile]

5. K & R

[Tarheel_Dem]

6. An exceptionally reasoned assessment that all too often gets drowned out by the noise.

[frogmarch]

14. Yes, a lot of the time it does

get drowned out by the noise, and there's a lot of noise going on these days, mostly because of the teahadist faction. Sometimes to stay sane I have to take a break from it all and tune everything out.

[Tarheel_Dem]

15. I agree. Tuning out can be quite rejuvenating. nt

[fadedrose]

8. She has a real grasp of the President and America

I agree with her on so many points, except, I kind of love him, even tho he never seems to be asking for it.

[frogmarch]

9. Yes, she does

have a good grasp on what America is – a very good grasp for a Brit, and I think a better grasp than even some Americans have. Here’s an excerpt from an earlier email she wrote to our mutual friend back in England, when our government was shut down.

I am living in a district of Manhattan known at ‘Loisaida,’ the ‘Nuyorican’ (New York Puerto Rican) name for the Lower East Side. Once home to immigrant Jews and Poles and Ukranians, and then to Puerto Ricans, the neighbourhood is now even more mixed once again -- new generations of Russians and Poles, Latin Americans and Chinese people mix with African Americans and Jews and Ukrainians -- and the odd Brit. We are subletting from a friend, and our tiny flat has a shower in the kitchen, but I love this flat because it opens onto St. Marks Place, opposite a great old bookshop, a block from Moishe’s kosher bakery, Veselka the Ukranian cafe, and opposite, I now realize, new York’s oldest Day Nursery -- founded by missionary Sarah Curry, whose plaque was unveiled yesterday after a lively day of food stall and face painting -- and hundreds of kids.

America is in some turmoil. The government has, quite literally, closed down. That means there are no National Parks open, no clinical trials for cancer patients. It means that food banks and programs for the poor have closed. It also means that thousands and thousands of people are on ‘furlough,’ unpaid indeterminate leave. It is, as a Republican senator said, a battle ground. One wonders if he realizes that he and his political cronies are to blame for the battle. There is a rump of the right wing here that will fight health care provision until the end -- but what that end is, who knows? Affordable healthcare for all began to roll out last week. Hundreds of thousands have signed up, but Congress will not ratify it and Obama has (rightly I think) refused to give in to Republican demands to cut it. As of today, God knows where the country headed.

And yet, America soldiers on because this is also the land of what I will call ‘extreme’ volunteering. And that is something I marvel at here. In this tiny square mile we have so much localism it is shocking. We have Seeds for Supper, a programme to enable teens to cook, and cook healthfully. There are partnerships with local farms to bring good food into the city. There are talks and groups and community gardens, cook outs and yard sales, flea markets and benefits. It has always amazed me just how active Americans are as people -- yet without real welfare structure there is a tidal wave of poverty. I see it just looking out on the street, and this time I see more of it. The downturn reaches here where I am -- yet it is far, far worse elsewhere.

She's very perceptive indeed.

[fadedrose]

10. She sees wonderful people doing their best

who need a government as good as what they are. They are just steps ahead of real poverty and there seems to be no way out.

I'm glad she sees the Republicans as obstructionists and the people as ambitious..NY is all our town...

We could use her as a citizen.