Obama’s Tunnel at the End of the Light
I had a bet with myself about how long it would take for the top Washington pundits to go from slathering adulation like butter on Barack Obama’s every move to finding a snarky way to spin the exact same actions.
By bright and early January 6, after Bill Richardson had withdrawn from nomination as Commerce secretary due to financial scandal back home in New Mexico and some folks had objected to CIA director-nominee Leon Panetta, NBC’s Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd told the awakening nation on the Today Show, “The 2008 transition was smooth; the 2009 transition is already rocky.” Shortly, the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz beat the “Obama has had a bad week” drum, adding that the flap over putting Roland Burrris into Obama’s senate seat was getting in the way of Obama’s desire to move his economic package swiftly—and (oh, they love this) the Republicans stood Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid down on Burris, hoping to taint the president-elect with Blagojevich slime.
I mean really, the guy hasn’t even been sworn in yet. I thought they’d give him till at least January 15.
Still, I know from my experience as a movement leader that it doesn’t take long in Washington for those who were singing your praises to start chewing you up. Sometimes simultaneously. Beltway culture is fueled by conflict, and the voracious media has nothing to chew about if there’s no political pugilism. But a leader can’t be deterred by this; in fact, he or she is beter off to embrace it as a fact of life.
“There is a tunnel at the end of the light,” the late Abba Eban, Israel’s first ambassador to the U.S., used to say.
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I don’t know if Barack Obama has ever heard this quote, but he must be thinking something similar right now as he contemplates his own leadership responsibilities. It’s one thing to get elected; it’s quite another to govern. Every way he turns—the economy, health care, energy, his cabinet appointments, Gaza—there is clearly a tunnel full of new problems at the end of every imagined solution’s ray of light.
But isn’t the essence of leadership knowing that there are no easy or permanent solutions, and having the courage to take action and get things done even though people will second guess you no matter what you do? A leader can be defined as anyone who gets things done. And if people can’t find anything to criticize about what you’ve done, you probably haven’t done enough or haven’t done enough that represents meaningful change.
Obama’s 1/8 economy speech didn’t say a lot that was new about concrete polices, but it was given at the right time and for the right reason: to keep Congress’s attention where it should be, not on whether to seat Roland Burris, but on righting our economic meltdown that is affecting every American and indeed the entire world. The message “Act now, act boldly,” is exactly right.
The courage to act is the core of true leadership. If it took courage to run, it takes a double measure to continue the forward trajectory through which Obama can drive the agenda rather than having it drive him. He must continuously advance a visionary agenda to keep his extraordinary political movement moving. I predict maintaining the energy to do this will be his biggest test as a leader.
There will always be tunnels at the end of the light. So far, so good.
GLORIA FELDT is the New York Times bestselling author of several books including No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power, a sought-after speaker and frequent contributor to major news outlets, and the Co-Founder and President of Take The Lead. People has called her “the voice of experience,” and among the many honors she has been given, Vanity Fair called her one of America’s “Top 200 Women Legends, Leaders, and Trailblazers,” and Glamour chose her as a “Woman of the Year.”
As co-founder and president of Take The Lead, a leading women’s leadership nonprofit, her mission is to achieve gender parity by 2025 through innovative training programs, workshops, a groundbreaking 50 Women Can Change The World immersive, online courses, a free weekly newsletter, and events including a monthly Virtual Happy Hour program and a Take The Lead Day symposium that reached over 400,000 women globally in 2017.
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Barack Obama is leading by example. His mother-in-law is moving into the White House to provide additional love and assistance to his children. In this economy, many families will be forced to move in together as both parents and adult children lose jobs. Though he may receive criticism for his economic policies, he is demonstrating one way that families, if they are willing to communicate well with each other, can survive in this depressed economic environment.
Ruth, you are the expert in this area, so thank you for your observations about the political message Obama is sending with his personal choices.
My New Year’s resolution is to try to be hopeful and give everyone in the new administration time to adjust and getting things done before jumping all over them but I think once the inauguration is over and the mainstream media have milked that for everything it is worth, the lovefest will end. The media’s reporting on Blago is a great example of how they try to create the news- the way they tried to allege that Obama and Emmanuel had many, many conversations and seemed to be hiding something, blah, blah blah- come to find out one of the best US Attorneys out there, Patrick Fitzgerald *asked* Obama to hold off on answering questions about the communications. But that didn’t stop the media from pulling conjecture and innuendo out of their backsides at every available opportunity.
I just hope Obama isn’t so taken up with his no partisanship pledge that he forgets what he stood for during the campaign. But as I said, I’ll give them time.
Stacy, exactly the conversation my husband and I were having a few minutes ago while we were watching CNN’s run up to the inauguration.
Post-Partisanship? Fine if we are talking about civility, politicians working together colleagially to solve problems. Not fine if the idea is to strip the parties of their principles, their philosophies. The push-pull of different ideas and worldviews is what makes the wheels of democratic policy making work, and we are all usually the better for it because that’s how new and better ideas can often emerge.
Sure, we can all get along. But that doesn’t mean we have to get along by giving up our beliefs. Funny, it’s always only the liberals and moderates who thing post-partisanship is a good idea. What does that tell us about its validity?
It is interesting that the GOP don’t seem to care so much about civility and being non-partisan when it’s one of their own in the White House- it’s only when a Democrat occupies it that it seems to matter.
I certainly hope Obama can change the tone in Washington- civility and respect for opposing views is always a plus, but Obama’s explanation for having Rick Warren speak (I left the room where I was watching the inauguration during Warren’s invocation) worried me- having people with opposing views represented at the ceremony was a good idea- Obama is President of the US, not President of the Democrats, but that said, embracing hateful, discriminatory religious rhetoric is not the same as being “bi-partisan.”
If we embrace a homophobe because it is based upon Warren’s rather limited and intolerant view of Christianity, then why not embrace the Muslim cleric who believes that Israel has no right to the disputed land in Israel/Palestine? Or how about giving voice to a Pastor who believes that the sole function of women is to submit to their husbands and bear children? But Obama wouldn’t have any of those individuals represented because those views are intolerant and there would be a huge outcry. Unfortunately, the sad fact is, it’s still ok to embrace anti-gay sentiments and hide behind the illusion of “respect for opposing viewpoints.”
And why is every government ceremony so heavily tilted towards Christianity? It is not in the spirit of the principle of religious diversity. To me, it all seems like pandering to a very powerful, monied interest group which cries very loudly if they aren’t allowed to be the only voice heard in the room, so to speak.
Stacy,You get the Oscar for best title of a blog post:
http://cafepolitico.us/blog/2009/01/22/the-pond-scum-is-tough-to-get-rid-of/
on your Cafe Politico.
Gloria said:
“Stacy,You get the Oscar for best title of a blog post:
http://cafepolitico.us/blog/2009/01/22/the-pond-scum-is-tough-to-get-rid-of/
on your Cafe Politico.”
I gladly accept. I love prizes. 🙂
No matter how hopeful Americans are, we have to accept that the intolerant, dumpster-diving right-wing punditry will still find someone or something to hate. Coulter, Ingraham and Limbaugh will turn on Hillary Clinton and we all know that Obama is to far-right, what kryptonite is to superman.