Obama’s First Days
Published in La Prensa
(Honduras) on 3 February 2009
by Jorge Ramos Avalos (link to original)
Barack Obama is the most famous person in the world. This idea occurred to DeeDee Meyers, who was the first woman to work as a presidential spokesperson in the Bill Clinton era. And she is right. There is no one better known than Obama on the planet. Not even the Pope or Madonna.
Only in this way can one explain the 1.8 million people who went to Washington for his taking of powers in temperatures below freezing My water bottle was frozen in the second hour outdoors.
Is Obama generating fanaticism? Maybe a little bit. It already has a name: Obamamania. But the truth is that it is not every day that an African-American of 47 years of age arrives to the White House.
Barack Obama reminded us in his inaugural address that only 60 years ago his father, born in Kenya, could not enter various restaurants in the city. Nevertheless, what surprised me the most about Obama's speech was that he never presented himself as an African-American.
He wants other things to define him: is ideas, his intelligence, his creativity and perseverance…but not his skin color.
We began well. This is a post-racial era in which everyone, like Obama, is mixed. He is African from his father, Asian for having grown up in Indonesia and Anglo-saxon by his White mother from Kansas. Or that is, African-Asian-American.
No one is pure. We are, as a commentator from MSNBC said, a type of Benetton commercial. Obama made mixed races cool. Obama reminds me of the book “The Cosmic Race” (1925) in which Jose Vasconcelos says: “The final end to history is to achieve the fusion of peoples and cultures."
Obama is also, the first American to win the presidency with the help of the Internet -more than two million users of the web contributed to his political campaign- and he is also the first North American leader who texts, chats and sends emails.
Obama, like almost all members of his generation, likes to break patterns and won the first fight with the Secret Service agents and their lawyers.
Going against their recommendations, he stayed with his cell phone. It is a Blackberry, which will allow him to stay connected to his family, with a small group of friends and with some of his principle collaborators.
This little detail is an enormous triumph. The primary problem of the White house is that it isolates its occupants from reality.
Bill Clinton believed that he could have oral sex with an intern without anyone finding out. He was wrong.
George W. Bush believed that he could start a war without valid reasons. He also was wrong. We hope that his Blackberry, his family and his friends keep Obama with his feet on the ground.
For now, he has fulfilled some of his various campaign promises in the first days of his presidency.
He prohibited torture of prisoners of the United States. No more Abu Ghraib. He also ordered the closing of the prison in the naval base in Cuba. No more Guantanamo.
He wants more transparency in everything that the government is doing. Nothing hidden. Everything on the Internet. And he allowed experimentation with stem cells for those who suffer from paralysis. That is to say that Obama began to put stock in hope.
People are happy with him. 53 percent of North Americans feel more optimistic after Obama's inauguration, according to a survey by AP. And 67 percent of those in 17 countries surveyed by the BBC in believe that Obama is going to improve relations between the United States and the rest of the world. Not bad for someone who only spent four years in the Senate.
The contrast between Obama with Bush is enormous. On leaving his presidency, only 22 of every 100 North Americans believed that Bush had done his job well, according to a poll by the channel BS.
One of the things that impressed me the most after the inauguration was the moment in which Bush said goodbye and went into the helicopter next to the Capitol. In spite of the monstrous noise of the helicopter taking off, the booing of Bush by the crowd was enough that it drowned out the sound of the propellers and engines. No one told me. I heard it.
But Bush didn’t hear it. When he got to Texas he gave a speech in which he said that when looking in the mirror that night he would not have anything to repent.
And while Bush was looking at what to do in front of the mirror in his ranch, Obama was trying to get the country out of the ruins that his predecessor left.
Barack Obama, in his first days of the presidency, is a man with speed. And he has already shown absolute security in his first decisions. He is leading and it surprises me that nothing disturbs him.
But the fact is not that Obama makes decisions quickly and safely, but that he makes the right decisions. In this time of economic crisis, we cannot afford another president who makes enormous mistakes in essential things.
Yes Obama could be the most famous person in the world. But he also has the most difficult job in the world.
Only in this way can one explain the 1.8 million people who went to Washington for his taking of powers in temperatures below freezing My water bottle was frozen in the second hour outdoors.
Is Obama generating fanaticism? Maybe a little bit. It already has a name: Obamamania. But the truth is that it is not every day that an African-American of 47 years of age arrives to the White House.
Barack Obama reminded us in his inaugural address that only 60 years ago his father, born in Kenya, could not enter various restaurants in the city. Nevertheless, what surprised me the most about Obama's speech was that he never presented himself as an African-American.
He wants other things to define him: is ideas, his intelligence, his creativity and perseverance…but not his skin color.
We began well. This is a post-racial era in which everyone, like Obama, is mixed. He is African from his father, Asian for having grown up in Indonesia and Anglo-saxon by his White mother from Kansas. Or that is, African-Asian-American.
No one is pure. We are, as a commentator from MSNBC said, a type of Benetton commercial. Obama made mixed races cool. Obama reminds me of the book “The Cosmic Race” (1925) in which Jose Vasconcelos says: “The final end to history is to achieve the fusion of peoples and cultures."
Obama is also, the first American to win the presidency with the help of the Internet -more than two million users of the web contributed to his political campaign- and he is also the first North American leader who texts, chats and sends emails.
Obama, like almost all members of his generation, likes to break patterns and won the first fight with the Secret Service agents and their lawyers.
Going against their recommendations, he stayed with his cell phone. It is a Blackberry, which will allow him to stay connected to his family, with a small group of friends and with some of his principle collaborators.
This little detail is an enormous triumph. The primary problem of the White house is that it isolates its occupants from reality.
Bill Clinton believed that he could have oral sex with an intern without anyone finding out. He was wrong.
George W. Bush believed that he could start a war without valid reasons. He also was wrong. We hope that his Blackberry, his family and his friends keep Obama with his feet on the ground.
For now, he has fulfilled some of his various campaign promises in the first days of his presidency.
He prohibited torture of prisoners of the United States. No more Abu Ghraib. He also ordered the closing of the prison in the naval base in Cuba. No more Guantanamo.
He wants more transparency in everything that the government is doing. Nothing hidden. Everything on the Internet. And he allowed experimentation with stem cells for those who suffer from paralysis. That is to say that Obama began to put stock in hope.
People are happy with him. 53 percent of North Americans feel more optimistic after Obama's inauguration, according to a survey by AP. And 67 percent of those in 17 countries surveyed by the BBC in believe that Obama is going to improve relations between the United States and the rest of the world. Not bad for someone who only spent four years in the Senate.
The contrast between Obama with Bush is enormous. On leaving his presidency, only 22 of every 100 North Americans believed that Bush had done his job well, according to a poll by the channel BS.
One of the things that impressed me the most after the inauguration was the moment in which Bush said goodbye and went into the helicopter next to the Capitol. In spite of the monstrous noise of the helicopter taking off, the booing of Bush by the crowd was enough that it drowned out the sound of the propellers and engines. No one told me. I heard it.
But Bush didn’t hear it. When he got to Texas he gave a speech in which he said that when looking in the mirror that night he would not have anything to repent.
And while Bush was looking at what to do in front of the mirror in his ranch, Obama was trying to get the country out of the ruins that his predecessor left.
Barack Obama, in his first days of the presidency, is a man with speed. And he has already shown absolute security in his first decisions. He is leading and it surprises me that nothing disturbs him.
But the fact is not that Obama makes decisions quickly and safely, but that he makes the right decisions. In this time of economic crisis, we cannot afford another president who makes enormous mistakes in essential things.
Yes Obama could be the most famous person in the world. But he also has the most difficult job in the world.