Obama & The Referendum On Turning America Back From The Dark Side

There are those, I know, who will say that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is the American dream.

-- ARCHIBALD MacLEISH

In exactly nine weeks, America will go to the polls in the most important election of my lifetime and, I daresay, for anyone who wasn't old enough to vote for Franklin Roosevelt or Herbert Hoover in 1932.

Why is it the most important? Because even before factoring in the excesses, amorality and criminality of the last eight years, America already was in the kind of deep do-do that not even 1932 can compare to:

Well before the coming of George Walker Bush, the disparity between the rich and poor was accelerating. Middle class families were having a harder time balancing their checkbooks. Millions of people had no access to affordable health care, let alone the insurance to help pay for it. There was an over-reliance on fossil fuels and indifference to alternative energy resources. The infrastructure was crumbling. And there was great confusion about the role the remaining superpower should play on the world stage.

These crises, well underway as the new millennium dawned, cannot be blamed on the Clinton administration alone or for that matter any other administration of recent vintage. Some of the problems were beyond the control of whomever occupied the Oval Office. Indeed, some cried out for solutions that no party or politician could provide.

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The dread that I felt that night in Philadelphia in August 2000 as Bush gnawed his way through his acceptance speech was palpable. This was because I knew that he was an empty vessel -- a resume without a man -- into which rabid conservatives would pour their animosities and causes.

That some eight years later Bush has not fulfilled a single promise in his acceptance speech seems besides the point. That he, nor any other president, could have done little to stanch certain long-term economic and social trends let alone prevent a hurricane by the name of Katrina from ravaging the Gulf Coast is beside the point.

The point is that what this president was able to control, be it responding to a humanitarian crisis, checking the excesses on Wall Street that were visiting miseries on Main Street not seen since the Great Depression, or embarking on initiatives to help calm the world's hot spots, were well beyond his interest or capabilities. In fact, he was utterly out of his depth if he wasn't tethered to the reliably evil Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and the lesser Machiavellis surrounding him.

It is Bush's abject failure to lead following the events of September 11 that will be his legacy writ large.

How extraordinary that he took a presidential approval rating the likes of which had not be seen since Pearl Harbor attack and drop kicked it all the way to Iraq while getting in a succession of sucker punches to the solar plexus of the balance of powers, the rule of law and international treaties and conventions to which the U.S. had been a charter signatory. Not in the service of fighting the Global War on Terror, the convenient cover story, but the very kind of imperial power grab that the Founding Fathers feared.

The result has been an ear-popping descent to the point where Bush's dis-approval rating threatened to eclipse that of a late 20th century president who at least had the sense to resign.

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It is difficult to believe that this time a year ago, I was considering voting for John McCain.

This is because I understood that getting beyond the Age of Bush, let alone trying to rebound from its excesses, was not simply a matter of partisan politics. It was a matter of leadership, and in the distant past of September 2007 it seemed to me that the man from Arizona was made of sturdier stuff than a certain former First Lady.

Enter Barack Obama and a political ascendancy that is as improbable as this election is important.

If you are in the thrall of the media noise machine, then you may believe that Obama has raised more questions about his ability to lead America out of that morass than he has answered.

I do agree that few potential presidents during my lifetime have seemed more like a work in process, although not the empty vessel that George Bush was and remains. But Obama should be well known at this juncture: A hugely charismatic man who has cleverly marketed the politics of change but has a bare-knuckled pragmatism evident in his selection of Joe Biden.

Contrast the Biden pick with Sarah Palin, a lightweight so devoid of experience that she makes Richard Nixon's annointment of a corrupt, third-rate county executive by the name of Spiro Agnew seem inspired. And what further confirmation is needed about how addled and impulsive McCain is?

Taking a chance on Barack Obama is not really much of a gamble because he has made the hoary concept of governance a centerpiece of his campaign and will surround himself with the best and brightest; even Republicans.

Then there is the deeply cynical John McCain, who not only is running a shameful campaign reminiscent of Bush-Cheney 2000 and 2004, but would take us even deeper into that morass of fear and thuggery not merely because of his failure to break with it but because of his obesiance to the very people who have taken America to the dark side.

Image: "Liberty" by Andrea Harris