Thursday, December 18, 2008

Time Magazine On Obama: 'His Genome Is Global, His Mind Is Innovative, His World Is Networked'

Time's Person of the Year 2008: excerpts of article by David Von Drehle.

Stop and look back at those last few words, because they are a telltale sign of Obama's pragmatism. A persistent question during the campaign -- it became the heart of John McCain's message in the closing weeks -- was whether Obama was some kind of radical, a terrorist-befriending socialist masquerading as Steady Freddy. As he builds his Administration, though, he is emerging as a leader who just wants to "get some things done."

[...]

Unveiling these and other picks at a series of daily press conferences, Obama assured the public that he wanted to move fast, so fast that trainloads of money might be ready for him to dispatch across the country with a stroke of his pen on Inauguration Day. The idea of another wave of spending horrifies America's surviving conservatives, but most economists support it -- some with enthusiasm, some with resignation. Obama realized that the stimulus package could be a vehicle for launching his broad domestic agenda. His ambitious campaign promises — to reform health care, cut taxes for low- and moderate-income earners and steer the U.S. toward a new energy economy — had seemed doomed by the yawning budget deficit (some $200 billion a month, according to the latest projections). But call these projects "stimulus," and suddenly a ship headed for the reef of economic disaster might sail through Congress flying the flag of economic recovery.

With even Republican economists talking about hundreds of billions in new spending, the sky's the limit. A dream of health-care reformers -- electronic medical records -- is now economic stimulus because Obama will pour money into hospitals for computers and clerical workers. His tax cut is stimulus because it puts spending money in the pockets of working Americans. His pledge to repair the nation's infrastructure is a stimulus plan for construction workers, while his energy strategy is stimulus for the people who will modernize government buildings, update public schools and improve the electrical grid.

[...]

Podesta had long been planning the return of a Democrat to the White House, and his think tank, the Center for American Progress, was already preparing detailed briefings on conditions in the various departments of government. As the financial system went into free fall in September, Podesta's team pressed the FBI to work overtime on security screenings of potential Obama nominees. Now, as he boarded a 6 a.m. flight to Chicago, Podesta carried a list of more than 100 candidates who had passed their background investigations and were ready for confirmation on Day One.

[...]

Obama had been pondering whether he should step to center stage or wait in the wings as the turbulent last months of the Bush Administration played out. His aides were all over the map. Some advised him to go quietly about his business in Chicago and insist that America has just one President at a time. For Obama to succeed, they argued, the country needed to see his Inauguration as a clean break, a new sunrise. Others floated the idea of immediately starting the First Hundred Days, perhaps asking George W. Bush to appoint Obama's choices to key offices so that they could get to work by late November.

[...]

They told Hart they were drawn to Obama's self-assured and calming personality. They felt he was "honest," a "straight shooter" -- in other words, a person who does what he says he will do. Their confidence in Obama wasn't starry-eyed; they hadn't been swept away by his stadium speeches. They saw a man who can get some things done, at a time when so many of their leaders, from Pennsylvania Avenue to Wall Street, cannot. He made moderates feel hopeful, and even among many core Republicans who did not ultimately vote for him, Obama inspired admiration. Viewing these comments through the results of his national surveys, Hart discerned a surge of good feeling that he had not seen in a generation: "a sense of real hope," he says, "and the kind of broad bipartisan support that has not been in evidence since the 1980 Reagan election."

[...]

A few days after this interview, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich reminded the country that some aspects of politics will never change. Government is a human enterprise, after all, and Obama, like everyone else, is bound by its limits and subject to human frailty. Nevertheless, if he has shown anything this year, Obama has made it clear that he knows how to write new playbooks and do things in new ways. Which is a compelling quality right now. His arrival on the scene feels like a step into the next century -- his genome is global, his mind is innovative, his world is networked, and his spirit is democratic.

8 comments:

  1. More excerpts:

    By now we are all accustomed to that Obi-Wan Kenobi calm, though we may never entirely understand it. In a soothing monotone, he highlights the scariest hairpin turns on his itinerary, the ones that combine difficulty with danger plus a jolt of existential risk.

    It's unlikely that you were surprised to see Obama's face on the cover. He has come to dominate the public sphere so completely that it beggars belief to recall that half the people in America had never heard of him two years ago – that even his campaign manager, at the outset, wasn't sure Obama had what it would take to win the election. He hit the American scene like a thunderclap, upended our politics, shattered decades of conventional wisdom and overcame centuries of the social pecking order. Understandably, you may be thinking Obama is on the cover for these big and flashy reasons: for ushering the country across a momentous symbolic line, for infusing our democracy with a new intensity of participation, for showing the world and ourselves that our most cherished myth -- the one about boundless opportunity – has plenty of juice left in it.

    [...]

    It is here that we find Barack Obama one soul-freezingly cold December day, mentally unpacking the crate of crushing problems -- some old, some new, all ugly -- that he is about to inherit as the 44th President of the United States. Most of his hours inside the presidential-transition office are spent in this bland and bare-bones room. You would think the President-elect – a guy who draws 100,000 people to a speech in St. Louis, Mo., who raises three-quarters of a billion dollars, who is facing the toughest first year since Franklin Roosevelt's -- might merit a leather chair. Maybe a credenza? A hutch?

    [...]

    But crisis has a way of ushering even great events into the past. As Obama has moved with unprecedented speed to build an Administration that would bolster the confidence of a shaken world, his flash and dazzle have faded into the background. In the waning days of his extraordinary year and on the cusp of his presidency, what now seems most salient about Obama is the opposite of flashy, the antithesis of rhetoric: he gets things done. He is a man about his business -- a Mr. Fix It going to Washington. That's why he's here and why he doesn't care about the furniture. We've heard fine speechmakers before and read compelling personal narratives. We've observed candidates who somehow latch on to just the right issue at just the right moment. Obama was all these when he started his campaign: a talented speaker who had opposed the Iraq war and lived a biography that was all things to all people. But while events undermined those pillars of his candidacy, making Iraq seem less urgent and biography less relevant, Obama has kept on rising. He possesses a rare ability to read the imperatives and possibilities of each new moment and organize himself and others to anticipate change and translate it into opportunity.

    [...]

    In some tellings, Obama's journey to the White House started with his little-noticed but carefully nuanced speech against the Iraq war in 2002. In other versions, it began with his electrifying address to the Democratic Convention in 2004. Those moments blazed with potential, true, but something more was necessary: a certain appetite among the electorate. The country had to be hungry for the menu he offered, and in that sense, his path's true beginning lay in the drowned precincts of New Orleans in the sweltering, desperate late summer of 2005.

    Hurricane Katrina blew away the last gauzy veil from an ugly specter of executive incompetence in American politics. When the people of New Orleans needed leadership, the Republican Administration in Washington proved useless. The Democratic governor and mayor were pitiful. At long last, our government was united — but under an appalling banner of fecklessness. The moral bankruptcy of the spin doctors was laid bare: no soul remained gullible enough to believe that Brownie was doing a heckuva job.

    After Katrina, demand collapsed for the very qualities that Obama lacked as a candidate: empty boasts, finger-pointing, backstabbing and years of experience inside a government that couldn't deliver bottled water to the stranded citizens of a major U.S. city. Spare us the dead-or-alive bravado, the gates-of-hell bluster, the melodrama of the 3 a.m. phone call. A door swung open for a candidate who would merely stand and deliver. Simple competence — although there's nothing simple about it, not in today's intricate, interdependent, interwoven, intensely dangerous world.

    [...]

    Voters were invited to believe because Obama kept delivering the goods. Certainly he made mistakes and gave up on some ideas while doubling back on others — his promise to stick to the existing campaign-finance system, for example. On the whole, though, he was a doer....

    Obama told people that a black man could win white votes. In Iowa he proved it. He said a broad-gauge campaign could win in GOP strongholds; along came Indiana and Virginia and North Carolina. He declared that a new approach to politics would topple the old Clinton-Bush seesaw, and topple it he did. He sank the three-pointer with the cameras rolling. Made a speech in a football stadium feel intimate. Some might say these are not exactly Churchillian achievements, but in the land of the hapless, the competent man is king. In the end, his campaign e-mail list numbered some 13 million people, of whom more than 3.5 million put actual skin in the game -- money, volunteer hours or both. Obama's most formidable opponent, Hillary Clinton, tried to convince voters that he was all talk and no action, a vessel empty but for intoxicating fumes. Yet he was the one whose campaign ran like clockwork, while hers was a fratricidal mess. And by Nov. 4, the strongest party in the U.S. was no longer the Republican Party or the Democratic Party; it was the Obama Party.

    [...]

    Some princes are born in palaces. Some are born in mangers. But a few are born in the imagination, out of scraps of history and hope....Barack Hussein Obama did not win because of the color of his skin. Nor did he win in spite of it. He won because at a very dangerous moment in the life of a still young country, more people than have ever spoken before came together to try to save it. And that was a victory all its own.

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  2. Guess Who Doesn't Like the Press, by Stephen F. Hayes

    And the feeling may be mutual.

    http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/933lziiq.asp

    [...]

    Barack Obama has promised to run the most transparent White House in history. As he said throughout the campaign, this election was about us, not him. So it makes some sense that he would let us see what we will be doing. The president-elect has held a record number of press conferences, and quite naturally he has earned lavish public praise for the frequency of his appearances.

    But take the time to look at what he has actually said in these engagements and you will be less impressed.

    At his first press conference, three days after the election, he backed some kind of stimulus package and artfully dodged several tough questions. CNN's Candy Crowley, for instance, noted that Obama had begun receiving intelligence briefings and asked whether he thought the intelligence agencies were doing a good job sharing information. "I have received intelligence briefings. And I will make just a general statement. Our intelligence process can always improve. I think it has gotten better. And, you know, beyond that, I don't think I should comment on the nature of the intelligence briefings."

    Crowley also asked whether he'd learned anything in his briefings that gave him second thoughts about any of the policies he advocated during the campaign. "I'm going to skip that." (Obama did talk at some length about buying a dog for his daughters.)

    Obama's second press conference focused on the economy. The president-elect had come out in favor of some kind of stimulus package--something he hoped would pass "either before or after inauguration." Reporters, not unreasonably, wanted a little better idea of what he actually wanted. So the first question was: "What are the details on your proposed stimulus package: how much it's going to cost, where the money's going to come from, and when do you want to see it enacted?"

    Obama said he wanted it quickly but was short on specifics. "I want to see it enacted right away. It is going to be of a size and scope that is necessary to get this economy back on track. I don't want to get into numbers right now."

    Another reporter wanted to know whether he intended to repeal the Bush tax cuts or simply let them expire at the end of 2010. Obama offered some of the platitudes leftover from his campaign and then deferred his answer. "Whether that's done through repeal or whether that's done because the Bush tax cuts are not renewed is something that my economic team will be providing me a recommendation on."

    A third reporter noted that Senator Schumer had suggested a $700 billion stimulus package and pointed out that a noted investor thought $1 trillion would be better. She asked Obama for a range. "I'm not going to--I'm not going to discuss numbers right now, Kim, because I think it's important for my economic team to come back with a recommendation."

    And on it went. At press conference after press conference, Obama introduced his new appointees and took a few questions. But only rarely did he give a direct and substantive answer.

    To a certain extent, Obama's reluctance to answer is understandable. After all, as he put it in the opening statement of his initial press conference as president-elect: "The United States has only one government and one president at a time." He is right, of course, and it's smart--or at least defensible--for him to pass on questions that might make the current president's job more difficult.

    But Obama seems to get annoyed at perfectly reasonable questions that have nothing at all to do with his one-president-at-a-time position. When the president-elect introduced Hillary Clinton as his choice to become secretary of state, Peter Baker from the New York Times asked him an obvious question. Noting that Obama had mocked Clinton's foreign policy experience during primary season, Baker wondered why he had settled on her to lead his administration's foreign policy team.

    BAKER: Going back to the campaign, you were asked and talked about the qualifications of the--your now--your nominee for secretary of state, and you belittled her travels around the world, equating it to having teas with foreign leaders; and your new White House counsel said that her résumé was grossly exaggerated when it came to foreign policy. I'm wondering whether you could talk about the evolution of your views of her credentials since the spring.

    OBAMA: Look, I'm in--I think this is fun for the press, to try to stir up whatever quotes were generated during the course of the campaign.

    BAKER: Your quotes, sir.

    OBAMA: No, I understand. And I'm--and you're having fun. (Laughs.)

    BAKER: I'm asking a question.

    OBAMA: And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not--I'm not faulting it.


    The president-elect suggested that those things he said during the campaign might not be all that reliable. "I think if you look at the statements that Hillary Clinton and I have made outside of the--the heat of a campaign, we share a view that America has to be safe and secure and in order to do that we have to combine military power with strengthened diplomacy."

    He finished with a testy statement of the obvious. "I think she is going to be an outstanding secretary of state. And if I didn't believe that, I wouldn't have offered her the job. And if she didn't believe that I was equipped to lead this nation at such a difficult time, she would not have accepted. Okay?"

    In a New York Times Magazine profile of Robert Gibbs, the incoming White House press secretary, Mark Leibovich reveals that the Obama campaign emulated the "Bush model" of tight information control. Campaign manager David Plouffe acknowledged that they "talked a lot about the Bush model" inside the campaign and, like the Bush White House, sought to limit the spread of information internally so as to avoid the leaking that badly damaged the campaigns of Obama's rivals.

    There are other similarities. During the 2004 election, Dick Cheney famously kicked the New York Times off his campaign plane. Obama apparently did the same to three newspapers this fall--the Washington Times, the New York Post, and the Dallas Morning News--all of which had endorsed John McCain. At the time, the Obama campaign cited space concerns. But when Leibovich asked Gibbs whether reporters were kicked off the plane for considerations other than space, Obama's spokesman first said "no" but later amended his response. "On occasion, yes," Gibbs said, adding that such instances were infrequent. "I mean, were there occasions? Sure."

    [...]

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  3. For documentation purposes:

    Transcript: English Translation of Zawahiri Message, Wednesday, November 19, 2008

    In the Name of Allah, and all Praise is due to Allah, and Prayers and Peace on the Messenger of Allah and on his family, Companions and allies.

    Muslim brothers everywhere: Peace be upon you and the Mercy of Allah and His blessings. As for what comes after:

    Barack Obama has won the presidency of the United States of America, and on this occasion, I would like to send several messages.

    First, a message of congratulations to the Muslim Ummah on the American people's admission of defeat in Iraq. Although the evidence of America's defeat in Iraq appeared years ago, Bush and his administration continued to be stubborn and deny the brilliant midday sun. If Bush has achieved anything, it is in his transfer of America's disaster and predicament to his successor. But the American people, by electing Obama, declared its anxiety and apprehension about the future towards which the policy of the likes of Bush is leading it, and so it decided to support someone calling for withdrawal from Iraq.

    The second of these messages is to the new president of the United States. I tell him: you have reached the position of president, and a heavy legacy of failure and crimes awaits you. A failure in Iraq to which you have admitted, and a failure in Afghanistan to which the commanders of your army have admitted. The other thing to which I want to bring your attention is that what you've announced about how you're going to reach an understanding with Iran and pull your troops out of Iraq to send them to Afghanistan is a policy which was destined for failure before it was born. It appears that you don't know anything about the Muslim Ummah and its history, and the fate of the traitors who cooperated with the invaders against it, and don't know anything about the history of Afghanistan and its free and defiant Muslim people. And if you still want to be stubborn about America's failure in Afghanistan, then remember the fate of Bush and Pervez Musharraf, and the fate of the Soviets and British before them. And be aware that the dogs of Afghanistan have found the flesh of your soldiers to be delicious, so send thousands after thousands to them.

    As for the crimes of America which await you, it appears that you continue to be captive to the same criminal American mentality towards the world and towards the Muslims. The Muslim Ummah received with extreme bitterness your hypocritical statements to and stances towards Israel, which confirmed to the Ummah that you have chosen a stance of hostility to Islam and Muslims.

    You represent the direct opposite of honorable black Americans like Malik al-Shabazz, or Malcolm X (may Allah have mercy on him). You were born to a Muslim father, but you chose to stand in the ranks of the enemies of the Muslims, and pray the prayer of the Jews, although you claim to be Christian, in order to climb the rungs of leadership in America. And so you promised to back Israel, and you threatened to strike the tribal regions in Pakistan, and to send thousands more troops to Afghanistan, in order for the crimes of the American Crusade in it to continue. And last Monday, your aircraft killed 40 Afghan Muslims at a wedding party in Kandahar. As for Malik al-Shabazz (may Allah have mercy on him), he was born to a black pastor killed by white bigots, but Allah favored him with guidance to Islam, and so he prided himself on his fraternity with the Muslims, and he condemned the crimes of the Crusader West against the weak and oppressed, and he declared his support for peoples resisting American occupation, and he spoke about the worldwide revolution against the Western power structure.

    That's why it wasn't strange that Malik al-Shabazz (may Allah have mercy on him) was killed, while you have climbed the rungs of the presidency to take over the leadership of the greatest criminal force in the history of mankind and the leadership of the most violent Crusade ever against the Muslims.

    And in you and in Colin Powell, Rice and your likes, the words of Malcolm X (may Allah have mercy on him) concerning "House Negroes" are confirmed.

    You also must appreciate, as you take over the presidency of America during its Crusade against Islam and Muslims, that you are neither facing individuals nor organizations, but are facing a Jihadi awakening and renaissance which is shaking the pillars of the entire Islamic world; and this is the fact which you and your government and country refuse to recognize and pretend not to see.

    As for the third message, it is to the Muslim Ummah. I tell it: America, the criminal, trespassing Crusader, continues to be the same as ever, so we must continue to harm it, in order for it to come to its senses, because its criminal, expansionist Crusader project in your lands has only been neutralized by the sacrifices of your sons, the Mujahideen. This, then, is the path, so stick to it.

    As for the fourth message, it is to the lions of Islam, the Mujahideen. I tell them: may Allah reward you in the best way for your historic heroics, which have ruined America's plans and rendered its projects ineffective. So be firm and resolute. Your enemy's stagger has begun, so don't stop hitting him.

    And I say to my brothers the Mujahideen in Iraq in general and the Islamic State of Iraq in particular, and to its Amir, the towering mountain Abu 'Umar al-Baghdadi: your enemy has admitted defeat, and the forthcoming stage is expected to be dominated by conspiracies and betrayals in order to cover the American withdrawal, so you must persevere, for victory is in an hour of perseverance.

    And I tell my brothers, the lions of Islam in Somalia: rejoice in victory and conquest. America is gathering its wounds in Iraq, and Ethiopia is looking for a way out, and for this reason, the stage of conspiracies and machinations has begun. So hold tightly to the truth for which you have given your lives, and don't put down your weapons before the Mujahid state of Islam and Tawheed has been set up in Somalia.

    And I tell all Mujahideen everywhere: the Hubal of the age has begun to falter and recede, and Allah has granted you success and honored you by making you the most important cause of that, so be resolute on the path of Jihad until you meet your Lord while He is pleased with you.

    And my fifth message is to all the world's weak and oppressed. I tell them: America has put on a new face, but its heart full of hate, mind drowning in greed, and spirit which spreads evil, murder, repression and despotism continue to be the same as always. And the Mujahideen of Islam, by the grace of Allah, continue to be the spearhead of the resistance against it to restrain it from injustice, aggression and arrogance.

    As for my final message, it is to the American people. I tell it: you incurred defeat and losses from the foolish actions of Bush and his gang, and at the same time, Shaykh Usama bin Ladin (may Allah preserve him) sent you a message to withdraw from the lands of the Muslims and refrain from stealing their treasures and interfering in their affairs. So choose for yourself whatever you like, and bear the consequences of your choice, and as you judge, you will be judged.

    And our final prayer is that all praise is due to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, and may Allah send prayers and peace on our Master Muhammad and his family and Companions.

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  4. Not So Green: Obama's New Limo, by Henry Payne
    Planet Gore/NRO, Thursday, January 08, 2009

    Complete article w/references @http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmFiMzBiZTEzMDJkMzJmMjRmYWZhOTY3M2NkNTUyNTA=

    “We need the next president to be an energy efficiency trendsetter starting by reinventing the inaugural parade,” wrote New York Times columnist and Obama-supporter Thomas Friedman just days before the election. “Get rid of the black stretch limos and double-plated armored Chevy Tahoes inching down Pennsylvania Avenue. Instead, let the next president announce that he will use no vehicles on inauguration day that get less than 30 miles per gallon.”

    Sorry, Tom, the Green One will be driving in a big Caddy limo.

    Confirming rumors floated last summer, the Detroit News reported Tuesday that the Secret Service will be unveiling for Obama’s inauguration trek a brand new fleet of gas-guzzling Cadillac limousines with 5-inch thick armor.

    During his campaign, Obama repeatedly scolded the Detroit Three for not “investing in more fuel-efficient technology for their vehicles, (while) spending their time investing in bigger, faster cars.”

    Yet Obama has repeatedly shown an appetite for bigger vehicles. He drove a V-8 Chrysler 300C (before the Detroit press disclosed it and he sold it for a hybrid SUV). Then during the campaign he relied on the Secret Service’s Chevy Tahoes and Suburban SUVs.

    While Friedman would sacrifice the president’s security for a symbolic, unarmored hybrid parade on Inauguration Day, Obama seems to have decided that preserving his life takes precedence over saving the planet.

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  5. How Can We Not Love Obama? By Stephen Marche
    Because like it or not, he is all of us
    http://www.esquire.com/features/thousand-words-on-culture/loving-obama-0811

    Before the fall brings us down, before the election season begins in earnest with all its nastiness and vulgarity, before the next batch of stupid scandals and gaffes, before Sarah Palin tries to convert her movie into reality and Joe Biden resumes his imitation of an embarrassing uncle and Newt and Callista Gingrich [FIG.1] creep us all out, can we just enjoy Obama for a moment? Before the policy choices have to be weighed and the hard decisions have to be made, can we just take a month or two to contemplate him the way we might contemplate a painting by Vermeer or a guitar lick by the early-seventies Rolling Stones or a Peyton Manning pass or any other astounding, ecstatic human achievement? Because twenty years from now, we're going to look back on this time as a glorious idyll in American politics, with a confident, intelligent, fascinating president riding the surge of his prodigious talents from triumph to triumph. Whatever happens this fall or next, the summer of 2011 is the summer of Obama.

    FIG. 1: The Anti-Obama, Gingrich packs a few narratives of his own: family-values cheater, man of the people with half-a-mil credit at Tiffany's, a great speaker who makes unconscionable gaffes.

    FIG. 2: Left, the original master of mass-media performance art [R Reagan]. Except his performance was one-note. And Bill Clinton, who said about Obama in 2008: "A few years ago this guy would have been getting us coffee." Now he's bringing the legacy policies that eluded you, Bill.

    Due to the specific nature of his political calculus, possibly not a single person in the United States — not even Obama himself — agrees with all of his policies. But even if you disagree with him, even if you hate him, even if you are his enemy, at this point you must admire him. The turning point came that glorious week in the spring when, in the space of a few days, he released his long-form birth certificate, humiliated Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, and assassinated Osama bin Laden. The effortlessness of that political triptych — three linked masterpieces demonstrating his total command over intellectual argument, low comedy, and the spectacle of political violence — was so overwhelmingly impressive that it made political geniuses of the recent past like Reagan and Clinton [FIG.2] seem ham-fisted. Formed in the fire of other people's wars, other people's financial crises, Obama stepped out of Bush's shadow that week, almost three years after taking over the presidency.

    FIG. 3: The original American, Whitman: "In [Obama] I see myself, none more and not one a barleycorn less. And the good or bad I say of myself I say of [Obama]."

    But even that string of successes cannot fully explain the immensity of his appeal right now. Reagan was able to call upon the classic American mythology of frontiersmen and astronauts and movie stars; Obama has accessed a much wider narrative matrix: He's mixed and matched Jay-Z with geek with Hawaiian with Kansan with product of Middle America with product of a broken home with local Chicago churchgoer with internationally renowned memoirist with assassin. "I am large, I contain multitudes," Walt Whitman [FIG.3] wrote, and Obama lives that lyrical prophecy. Christopher Booker's 2004 book The Seven Basic Plots, a wide-ranging study from the Epic of Gilgamesh on and a surprisingly convincing explanation for why we crave narrative, reduced all stories to a few plots, each with its own kind of hero. Amazingly, Barack Obama fulfills the role of hero in each of these ancient story forms.

    [continues in next comment]

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  6. [continues previous comment]

    While Obama's story is ancient, it is also utterly contemporary, perfectly of the moment. His gift — and it is a gift that makes him emblematic — is that he inhabits all these roles without being limited by them. He has managed, miraculously, to remain something of an outsider while being the president of the United States of America, the most inside man in the world. He's African-American, but he's not African-American. He's from Chicago, but he's from Hawaii. One month he's bailing out the banks, the next he's keeping Gitmo open. He pushes health-care reform through with an unimpeachable heave of will then extends the tax cuts. He walks smiling through the newly opened White House garden on his way to announce renewed efforts at oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, his "balanced" approach to the economy has led to a slower recovery than other industrialized nations and the war in Libya has been half-assed at best, which is exactly what war cannot be. For two years, he seemed disingenuous and defensive, pushed into roles that his predecessors had scripted, alternately playing savior then monster. But no more. We can finally see who he is, we can finally understand the reality: In 2011, it is possible to be a levelheaded, warmhearted, cold-blooded killer who can crack a joke and write a book for his daughters. It is possible to be many things at once. And even more miraculous, it is possible for that man to be the president of the United States. Barack Obama is developing into what Hegel called a "world-historical soul," an embodiment of the spirit of the times. He is what we hope we can be.

    We love Obama — even those who claim to despise him — because deep in our hearts and all over our lives, we're the same way — both inside and outside our jobs, our races, our cities, our countries, ourselves. With great artists, often the most irritating feature of their work is the source of their talent. Obama's gift is the same as his curse: He's somehow managed to be like the rest of us, only infinitely more so.



    The Seven Stories of Obama

    According to literary scholar Christopher Booker, every narrative in the world, from Gilgamesh to War and Peace to Water for Elephants, can be reduced to one of only seven master plots. Amazingly, the story of Obama contains every narrative.

    Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/thousand-words-on-culture/loving-obama-0811

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  7. Michael Mukasey: Obama and the bin Laden Bragging Rights. By Michael B Mukasey
    It's hard to imagine Lincoln or Eisenhower claiming such credit for the heroic actions of others.
    WSJ, April 30, 2012, 7:43 p.m. ET
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303916904577374552546308474.html

    The first anniversary of the SEAL Team 6 operation that killed Osama bin Laden brings the news that President Obama plans during the coming campaign to exploit the bragging rights to the achievement. That plan invites scrutiny that is unlikely to benefit him.

    Consider the events surrounding the operation. A recently disclosed memorandum from then-CIA Director Leon Panetta shows that the president's celebrated derring-do in authorizing the operation included a responsibility-escape clause: "The timing, operational decision making and control are in Admiral McRaven's hands. The approval is provided on the risk profile presented to the President. Any additional risks are to be brought back to the President for his consideration. The direction is to go in and get bin Laden and if he is not there, to get out."

    Which is to say, if the mission went wrong, the fault would be Adm. McRaven's, not the president's. Moreover, the president does not seem to have addressed at all the possibility of seizing material with intelligence value—which may explain his disclosure immediately following the event not only that bin Laden was killed, but also that a valuable trove of intelligence had been seized, including even the location of al Qaeda safe-houses. That disclosure infuriated the intelligence community because it squandered the opportunity to exploit the intelligence that was the subject of the boast.

    The only reliable weapon that any administration has against the current threat to this country is intelligence. Every operation like the one against bin Laden (or the one that ended the career of Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S. citizen and al Qaeda propagandist killed in a drone attack last September) dips into the reservoir of available intelligence. Refilling that reservoir apparently is of no importance to an administration that, after an order signed by the president on his second day in office, has no classified interrogation program—and whose priorities are apparent from its swift decision to reopen investigations of CIA operators for alleged abuses in connection with the classified interrogation program that once did exist.

    While contemplating how the killing of bin Laden reflects on the president, consider the way he emphasized his own role in the hazardous mission accomplished by SEAL Team 6:

    "I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority . . . even as I continued our broader effort. . . . Then, after years of painstaking work by my intelligence community I was briefed . . . I met repeatedly with my national security team . . . And finally last week I determined that I had enough intelligence to take action. . . . Today, at my direction . . ."

    That seems a jarring formulation coming from a man who, when first elected, was asked which president he would model himself on and replied, Lincoln.

    Abraham Lincoln, on the night after Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender ended the Civil War, delivered from the window of the White House a speech that mentioned his own achievements not at all, but instead looked forward to the difficulties of reconstruction and called for black suffrage—a call that would doom him because the audience outside the White House included a man who muttered that Lincoln had just delivered his last speech. It was John Wilkes Booth.

    [...]

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  8. Michael Mukasey: Obama and the bin Laden Bragging Rights. By Michael B Mukasey
    It's hard to imagine Lincoln or Eisenhower claiming such credit for the heroic actions of others.
    WSJ, April 30, 2012, 7:43 p.m. ET
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303916904577374552546308474.html

    [continues from previous comment]


    The man from whom President Obama has sought incessantly to distance himself, George W. Bush, also had occasion during his presidency to announce to the nation a triumph of intelligence: the capture of Saddam Hussein. He called that success "a tribute to our men and women now serving in Iraq." He attributed it to "the superb work of intelligence analysts who found the dictator's footprints in a vast country. The operation was carried out with skill and precision by a brave fighting force. Our servicemen and women and our coalition allies have faced many dangers. . . . Their work continues, and so do the risks."
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    He did mention himself at the end: "Today, on behalf of the nation, I thank the members of our Armed Forces and I congratulate them."

    That is not to say that great leaders, including presidents, have not placed themselves at the center of great events. But generally it has been to accept responsibility for failure.

    Lincoln took responsibility in August 1862 for failures that had been attributed to General George McClellan—eventually sacked for incompetence—and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Lincoln told a crowd that McClellan was not at fault for seeking more than Stanton could give, and "I stand here, as justice requires me to do, to take upon myself what has been charged upon the Secretary of War."

    Dwight Eisenhower is famous for having penned a statement to be issued in anticipation of the failure of the Normandy invasion that reads in relevant part: "My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."

    A week later, when the success of the invasion was apparent, Eisenhower saluted the Allied Expeditionary Forces: "One week ago this morning there was established through your coordinated efforts our first foothold in northwestern Europe. High as was my preinvasion confidence in your courage, skill and effectiveness . . . your accomplishments . . . have exceeded my brightest hopes.

    Eisenhower did mention himself at the end: "I truly congratulate you upon a brilliantly successful beginning. . . . Liberty loving people everywhere would today like to join me in saying to you, 'I am proud of you.'"

    Such examples are worth remembering every time President Obama claims bin Laden bragging rights.


    Mr. Mukasey served as U.S. attorney general from 2007-09, and as a U.S. district judge from 1988 to 2006.

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