Hang Fire

Despite being a new media convert, journalism purists will be pleased to know that The New York Times on Sunday, along with coffee and a bagel is still being championed. So Frank Rich wrote an op-ed piece today titled "Is Obama punking us?" the general sentiment being the disillusionment of the American people and "the larger fear...that Obama might be just another corporatist, punking voters much as the Republicans do when they claim to be all for the common guy." I cannot help but wonder if Rich is just feeling lazy. We are told every day of this disillusionment furthermore the stark warning at the end of the article that Obama needs to get healthcare in the bag is hardly revelatory. Yet how many people are content in endlessly discussing this disillusionment? Americans are like kids at Christmas who didn't get the present they wanted. They cannot stop harping on about the gift they didn't get. "Nothing has changed for the common guy". I simply say, it's been six months. Did you expect rainbows with pots of gold to sprout up in your back yard with leprechauns chirping "Yes We Can"? 

As a Brit living here, I could be tempted to say "only in America" could such an entirely quixotic presidency come into effect but I don't think that would do anyone justice. However, what I will say is that only in America could the press take a candidate under their wing in the way that the media did in the 2009 campaign. It was astonishing and we were all accomplices. I cannot count the number of conversations I had about the media pandering to Obama and his carefully crafted Obama story. Hilary was pushed from pillar to post, McCain, Palin and co. torn apart for being doddery and naive at the same time. We knew there was a slant to the press coverage, Obama was built to God like status. However, a lot of people, including myself gave Obama the benefit of the doubt, rationalizing that he was the smartest guy in the field and a fresh face to end a dynasty of Oval office occupiers. 

But now six months after the inauguration every cable station has gone from The Gentle News Network(see clip)  reporting on Obama to being his biggest critic. Palin is saying that Obama's healthcare bill is going to kill her downs syndrome baby and Newt Gingrich is following up with a supportive "The bill is a thousand pages of setting up mechanisms," he said. "You are asking us to trust turning power over to the government, when there are clearly people in America who believe in establishing euthanasia, including selective standards."  The liberal press are painting Obama as a corporate luvvie. And everyone else is saying that he is just a let down.

Hang fire.  You guys wanted universal health care (and as someone with the NHS I can understand for the most part why) and fast.  This is a plea to hang fire for a second. In the UK we expect the worst from our politicians and as commenter George F Will put it "the nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." Perhaps one of the syndrome's of being such a young country is that patience just isn't a virtue that is in abundance here.  He has been in power for six months. I would like to see Gordon Brown attempt such a feat in six years.  A radical overhaul will take time. What cannot be denied is that America elected a smart man with a smart wife, who has hired smart people. It has been six months. Expecting universal health care to appear overnight and for it not to add to the deficit, this is asking for miracles from the messiah. You did not elect a messiah, you elected a smart man. Bill Clinton was a smart man too and let us not forget that the Clintons could not do it in the 90s. Second time around may take some time. Hang fire.

The Gentle News Network clip from the Dana Carvey show (featuring a very young Stephen Colbert) seems strangely relevant at the moment while the media kicks itself for treating Obama like the saviour. Very funny.