Max McGuinness on Obama.
The election on Tuesday of a half black, self-described “skinny kid with a funny name” is certainly unprecedented and historic for all those reasons. But what I find truly cheering about Obama’s victory is that, for the first time since perhaps the 1950s, the American people have elected a president who doesn’t possess a major character flaw. As his impeccable manners and conduct throughout the campaign, along with his vastly superior intelligence and the glorious magnanimity and understatement of his acceptance speech attest, Barack Obama is the first fundamentally decent and psychologically-sound person to assume the highest office in living memory.
Let’s take a look at his predecessors: JFK – chronic invalid lacking any self-control whose judgement was permanently impaired by an incredible cocktail of uppers and downers; LBJ – corrupt, racist, vote-stealing bully who deceived congress and the American people into going to war in Vietnam; Nixon – erm, where does one begin?; Gerald Ford – “too stupid to fart and chew gum at the same time” LBJ; Jimmy Carter – the only real Christian fundamentalist nut job to have ever occupied the White House; Ronald Reagan – Alzheimer’s-ridden, McCarthyite turncoat lickspittle; George Bush Sr. – scheming former CIA director who was elected largely thanks to an overtly racist campaign; Bill Clinton – unstable, disorganised narcissist who electrocuted retards as Governor to shore up his “tough on crime” bona fides and used the machinery of government to smear a sexually exploited intern; George W. Bush – affable dolt who pathologically valued loyalty over competence. Note that I’ve barely glanced at any of their policies.
Now, if John McCain had been elected, the President-Elect would be a senile, gold-digging cynic with a volcanic temper whose judgement is so poor that he thinks it’s a good idea to try and win the Catholic vote by telling appalling Irish drunk jokes (watch here if you can bear it). He furthermore abdicated all pretence at possessing any principles when he gambled everything on a snide, vindictive moron from Alaska who thinks Africa is a country, never reads a newspaper, and can’t tell the difference between the President of France and Inspector Clouseau (the last comparison is from Christopher Hitchens). And this sinister nincompoop could potentially have ended up running the country. What was the buzzword on Tuesday night? Hope, change, reconciliation? How about PHEW?
In a none too subtle dig at his running mate’s scheming behind his back, McCain declared in his speech that “we can all look forward with great interest to her future service to Alaska, the Republican Party, and our country.” The one plausible downside to an Obama victory is that we have been deprived of four years worth of Tina Fey sketches who has announced that she is retiring her flawless impersonation of Governor Mooseburger.
The result further shows that exploiting the cult of the “average Joe” has finally reached diminishing returns. McCain spent the final days desperately flogging the case of “Joe the Plumber” as if an unlicensed tradesman was some sort of political and economic oracle. I felt the tectonic plates of American plates shift when I read a comment from a voter who, when asked if he wanted to vote for an “average Joe”, replied: “An average WHAT? An average me? Hell no! I want someone smarter.” And he got his wish: Americans have elected as president a man who edited the Harvard Law Review and writes books, two of them, himself . They are admittedly both about himself but the man has a fine prose style. He’s also from Chicago so we won’t have to listen to any of the hokey bullshit about coming from a “small town” which normally litters American public life.
So what’s not to like? Well, before you get too excited about the Europeanisation of America, bear in mind that Obama is a supporter of the death penalty and never misses an opportunity to emote some of the gooey piety which he imbibed at Jeremiah Wright’s altar. And what’s the only public change he’s made to his economic programme in response to the financial crisis? Forget about boosting the measly foreign aid budget – because subsidies for the ethanol industry are WAY more important. Thank you Iowa for those seven electoral votes not to mention that crucial caucus victory all the way back in January.
So let’s make that the “opportunism of hope”. Obama has the potential to be a great president over the next eight years (though I foresee a tight re-election and a midterm massacre in two years) but there’s no point letting him off the hook. Can he screw up? Yes, he can.
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