One of candidate Barack Obama’s defining, and best, features was his ability to inspire.
As President-elect Obama, though, he’s become something of a downer as he reacts to the recession and wrestles with expectations.
From the moment he walked onto that stage at Grant Park in Chicago on election night, he has worn the weight of a troubled world on his face. The gravity of his new responsibilities has begun to show in his words and in the whispers of newly gray hair.
On Tuesday, Obama must return to his inspirational roots and speak to the nation as a leader who will make us believe again — that not only will we survive, but we also will find within ourselves the power and the imagination, that spark of creation, that’s needed to attain our fullest potential and emerge from this collective dark night.
Indeed, it is tempting to almost feel sorry for Obama. No one really saw this financial collapse coming. Yes, some saw a downturn, but few predicted the enormous sinkhole that opened as Obama was on his way toward a historic victory.
The collapse was not Obama’s fault, but he is the one stuck with the Augean task of cleaning it up.
Obama’s supporters expect a great deal from him, and though they used the economy to attract votes, they never really believed he was going to have to focus his first years in office trying to save and create jobs. They want their new president to bring the troops home from Iraq, provide health care for all and replace our oil dependence with green energy, as well as accomplish a long list of other enormously complex policy objectives.
But these days the visionary leader is forced to explain to his own party his desire to spend nearly $1 trillion to do such uninspiring — and not necessarily green — things as fix roads and bridges.
Obama, it seems, has been trying to lower expectations, which is understandable. Much is expected of him, and hard work is ahead.
But at this moment, the nation needs to be lifted up.
John F. Kennedy took the office in 1961 as the country was locked in the Cold War, but he pressed on to meet the fears of the atomic age.
“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty,” Kennedy said in his inaugural address.
Ronald Reagan, entering the White House in 1981 at another time of great economic distress, also did not disappoint.
“It is time for us to realize that we are too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams,” Reagan said. “We are not, as some would have us believe, doomed to inevitable decline. I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. . . . So, with all the creative energy at our command, let us begin an era of national renewal. Let us renew our courage, our determination, and our strength. And let us renew our faith and our hope.
“We have every right to dream heroic dreams.”
And though we downplay comparisons between our current financial situation and the travails of the Great Depression, it is worth remembering that the speech containing that famous phrase, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” came in the opening lines of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first inaugural address in 1933.
Tough times call for clear-eyed thinking, but also, it would seem, there is room for brave optimism — or, as Roosevelt said, “when there is no vision the people perish.”
Roosevelt’s vision included a surprisingly human observation at the most individual of levels that seems surprisingly fresh in the wake of our collapse.
“Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort,” Roosevelt said. “The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow man.”
After the last eight years, we need a leader to guide us back to greatness. Obama made us believe he was up to the job.
So come home, Obama.
Don’t just bring us to our feet Tuesday — bring us back.
