One day later, the Obama presidency still seems hard to believe. As though I’m going to wake up any moment now and find the old quote-unquote president back on the tube stripping more varnish from the republic.

On the one hand, Obama certainly looks and acts like a president — the sort of idealized entertainment president we’ve been hankering for. Michael Douglas in “The American President,” or Kevin Kline in “Dave.” Someone decent and articulate who is glamorous without being pretty. Someone who wears the imprimatur well and speaks to the cause of the country and is going to get something done before the credits roll.
On the other hand, it’s precisely that movie-star nobility that’s making it hard to believe. If he resembles the presidency so many of us desired, he in no way resembles the presidents we’ve endured, who in the past forty years have generally been small-minded gut fighters, self-centered slobs, and incurious chimps with evil sidekicks. I don’t recall the quote-unquote feting the defeated John Kerry shortly thereafter (indeed, what I recall is his saying that he now had political capital he was looking forward to spending — and spend it he did). But there was Obama saying very nice and largely true things about John McCain at a tribute. Maybe that’s smart — it is — but maybe it’s also decent and heartfelt. And maybe it sets the tone that now we have a grown-up in this office. I’m glad to see him there.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 at 12:13 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.