Jan 25
Obama – a warning
So many loving, inspired, touching, hopeful words are being spoken and written about the new President of the United States. AND, he is only human! So much is being placed on his comparatively young shoulders. I want to say – step back and give him a breather! Too high an expectation can end in disillusion.
Support him yes, in any way you can – but don’t burden him. Give him space to make mistakes, to hesitate, to be an ordinary man.
I am as guilty as many – seeing in him our hope for a global solution to all our troubles. This is not the case. No one man can do this. I have to listen and believe him when he says “This is not going to change overnight” and ” I am going to make mistakes’. Watching him walk towards the podium to be sworn in, standing alone, looking a little tense, my thought was “please keep him alive”. In the whole of my life I have never felt that about anyone in public life – it was a shock, but there it was. Persephone
March 10th, 2009 at 5:04 am
I am currently reading Obama’s “book he could not live without in the White House”, ‘TEAM OF RIVALS The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln’, by Doris Kearns Goodwin (880 pages!). It gives him fair warning – that Lincoln struggled over decisions, got things wrong sometimes .. but his honesty and respect for others, and his growing wisdom,led to his genius as a president. He also was faced with mega-crisis as soon as he arrived in the White House – a civil war North against South, and of course he was assassinated towards the end of his time in office.
The book is just out in UK at £10.99, and is taking me weeks to read; I only put it down when my eyes get tired!
Like you Persephone, my feeling on that amazing day was “please keep him alive”.