That Obama
Published in El País
(Colombia) on 6 May 2015
by Jorge Restrepo Potes (link to original)
During a trip I made to the United States in the middle of 2008, I was invited to supper by two Colombian friends, whom I knew were right wing. I asked them who would be the Democratic Party candidate for the presidential elections that would take place at the end of that year, and they responded to me contemptuously: “That Obama.” Of course, this pair of compatriots, who were already North American citizens, would vote for the Republican candidate, John McCain, and considered it impossible that a black liberal with a name so foreign to this great nation could reach the White House.
I began to investigate who was “that Obama,” and I discovered that he had been born in Hawaii to a white mother and an African father, and who had jumped from the sate senate in Illinois to the federal Senate in Washington. While he was a congressman in Chicago, with his outstanding wife Michelle, he advanced the social work being done in the marginal zones of the immense city, and in the capital, he easily stood out as an amazing member of Congress.
In August of the that year, the convention of his party met in Denver and chose him as its candidate, defeating the aspiring senator, Hillary Clinton, who would soon be his secretary of state, and now is defined as his successor in next year’s elections.
I haven’t lost track of Obama, since January of 2009 when he took office to his participation in the 7th Summit of the Americas, which met recently in Panama, an event where Obama returned his country to first place among the nations of the world because he once again assumed the leadership the country had always had.
Barack Obama rose to power in the middle of the most tremendous economic crisis the United States has experienced since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Huge financial companies collapsed with subprime mortgages, and many people were left homeless and in ruins. The president gave the money and decided, with the approval of Congress, that $800 billion would be allocated to anchor the big banks so that they would not disappear and bring their clients to ruin. In addition, he implemented a series of measures that still maintain brokerage fees at virtually zero.
Today, the evident recovery of the United States is applauded by the entire world since its gross domestic product is growing, and the rate of unemployment is noticeably decreasing.
So, “that Obama,” with his manner of working and descending the stair of airplanes, identical to the dances of Fred Astaire in MGM musical films, stands out as the greatest leader of mankind at the present moment. There is no Chinese, Russian, English, French or German who can compare himself to him.
Obama's good governance paves the way for Mrs. Clinton so that there will be no election anxieties at the White House’s Oval Office, where, forgetting what her restless husband did with the intern Monica Lewinksy, she will take the reins of command.
I would, however, like to look through a keyhole at the two Americanized Colombians who told me about “that Obama,” who gave them a double dose of medicine when he was re-elected in 2012: not to mention the resumption of diplomatic and economic relations with Cuba, which is the highest-risk political maneuver that a president of the United States has taken after 50 years of absurd hostilities.
I began to investigate who was “that Obama,” and I discovered that he had been born in Hawaii to a white mother and an African father, and who had jumped from the sate senate in Illinois to the federal Senate in Washington. While he was a congressman in Chicago, with his outstanding wife Michelle, he advanced the social work being done in the marginal zones of the immense city, and in the capital, he easily stood out as an amazing member of Congress.
In August of the that year, the convention of his party met in Denver and chose him as its candidate, defeating the aspiring senator, Hillary Clinton, who would soon be his secretary of state, and now is defined as his successor in next year’s elections.
I haven’t lost track of Obama, since January of 2009 when he took office to his participation in the 7th Summit of the Americas, which met recently in Panama, an event where Obama returned his country to first place among the nations of the world because he once again assumed the leadership the country had always had.
Barack Obama rose to power in the middle of the most tremendous economic crisis the United States has experienced since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Huge financial companies collapsed with subprime mortgages, and many people were left homeless and in ruins. The president gave the money and decided, with the approval of Congress, that $800 billion would be allocated to anchor the big banks so that they would not disappear and bring their clients to ruin. In addition, he implemented a series of measures that still maintain brokerage fees at virtually zero.
Today, the evident recovery of the United States is applauded by the entire world since its gross domestic product is growing, and the rate of unemployment is noticeably decreasing.
So, “that Obama,” with his manner of working and descending the stair of airplanes, identical to the dances of Fred Astaire in MGM musical films, stands out as the greatest leader of mankind at the present moment. There is no Chinese, Russian, English, French or German who can compare himself to him.
Obama's good governance paves the way for Mrs. Clinton so that there will be no election anxieties at the White House’s Oval Office, where, forgetting what her restless husband did with the intern Monica Lewinksy, she will take the reins of command.
I would, however, like to look through a keyhole at the two Americanized Colombians who told me about “that Obama,” who gave them a double dose of medicine when he was re-elected in 2012: not to mention the resumption of diplomatic and economic relations with Cuba, which is the highest-risk political maneuver that a president of the United States has taken after 50 years of absurd hostilities.
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