Obama’s Lost Hope

The most destructive breach for President Obama is not the inexpressive advantage of the Republican Party in the ballot boxes, nor even the unpopularity of his work, which has largely surpassed his previous popularity; instead, it is the breach between aspirations and reality.

The controversy of [the building of] the mosque in Manhattan illustrates the problem in a compact way. First we saw Obama’s resonant principles; next came a politically inspired readjustment; later the explanation of the uncoordinated cabinet; much later a shameful silence, since it is difficult to clarify the clarification of a clarification. Then there was the president’s lamentable declaration of “I refuse to go backwards.”*

It was more than a slip-up. Since the discharge of Shirley Sherrod due to Fox News’ obsession with the story, as well as dealing with the critiques made against the “professional left,” the Obama administration seems implicated in a daily act of hypocrisy. It [the Obama administration] attacks the forcefulness and virulence of rigorous critics while simultaneously engaging in the very conduct for which it is criticized. In the process, the Obama administration often gives the image of being reactive, of being overwhelmed and of lacking principles.

This breach between ideals and practice is becoming the defining narrative of the administration. Obama promised in time, for example, to put an end to the “divisive fights in the dining hall in Washington.”* Apparently there is an exception for beverages. In his new campaign speech, he says: “We’re slipping and sliding and sweating, and the other side, the Republicans, they’re standing with their Slurpees watching us.” In Seattle, the President of the United States gestured as if he were drinking a Slurpee to mock his detractors. Obama’s partisan rhetoric is soppy, skimpy and graceless. During the campaign, he jokes and complains. Not dazzling.

But it is clear: the rhetoric encloses the message. After leaving behind the dreams of Franklin Roosevelt to make room for 9.5 percent unemployment, the president has arrived at an alleyway without an ideological exit. His natural political tendency would be to spend even more on stimuli, which today is a political impossibility. So the only thing left to do is attack the Republicans. It is a natural political tendency, but it leaves Obama at the same level as any other political partisan on the tightrope.

The grounds for tension are accumulating. The candidate that promised to surpass partisan differences approved his agenda in a constant parade of referendums exceeded by disciplined party strikes and legislative maneuvers on the verge of intimidation. The candidate who intended to overcome partisan divisions is perceived in a recent opinion poll by Democracy Corps as “too leftist” by 57 percent of probable voters. The candidate who said that he was going to “fundamentally change the way that we do business in Washington”* has seen the distrust of the public opinion grow in the administration at levels as high as before the French Revolution.

For some, this is simply a confirmation of the pre-existing vision of politics that no man is admired by those that know him well. But a nation of connoisseurs will lose its talent for grand endeavors. In a way it should be a source of sadness that Obama, for many, has transformed into a source of cynicism.

All politicians fall — but not from such great heights.

* EDITOR’S NOTE: These quotes, while accurately translated, could not be verified.