Day One…and yet
This blog has never known a Democratic president. Created in the summer of 2004, Fluid Imagination has alway looked at the man inside the White House with complete distrust. That skepticism turns up in the thousands and thousands and thousands of words we’ve written about President George W. Bush these past five years, and it culminated in me changing the name of our “Current Affairs” category to “In A World Gone Mad.“
But today, we no longer have to worry about George W. Bush. We no longer have to worry about a frat-boy mentality that honestly believes it can eradicate evil with the end of a gun. We no longer have to worry about the health of our home planet being compromised for the wealth of a Texas bank account. As of today, we can look at the White House and say to ourselves, “Things really can get better.”
And yet….and yet.
Today is Day One of the Obama Presidency. Rarely has a president been sworn in with so much Hope weighing on his back. In the long line of executives between 1789 and 2009, only George Washington and Franklin Roosevelt carried more Hope, the first for starting a new country, and the second for ending the Great Depression. But besides them, what other president besides Obama has the country looked to with so much yearning for change?
Like all of us, I hope today is the beginning of the progressive evolution of our society. I hope that by the end of President Obama’s first term, our country will be moving forward again — not towards the land of milk and honey that the Republicans are always promising (never telling us that the milk is poisoned and the bees are all dead) — but towards the land of tolerance and respect that has always been this country’s self-proclaimed destiny.
And yet…and yet.
Last night I watched the movie, The Candidate, which stars Robert Redford and which won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1973. It’s supposed to demonstrate how running for office turns even a good hearted man into a sleazy politician, and while the movie has many flaws, it’s a cautionary tale we all should be aware of today.
I hope over the next four years — hell, over the next four months! — President Obama does enough to retire the “In A World Gone Mad” category….and yet, for some reason, I still find it difficult to believe that he will. President Bush (or more accurately, Vice-President Cheney) left the state of the government such that the Executive has almost absolute power. And you know what they say…Absolute power corrupts absolutely….
And yet….and yet…I hope.