A Love Affair With Obama That Cooled

[somone]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/us/07iht-politicus07.html

A Love Affair With Obama That Cooled
By JOHN VINOCUR

OBERLIN, OHIO — What follows here is not necessarily a description of a political epiphany or a bellwether moment.

But something interesting and, just maybe, politically indicative happened 11 days ago during a symposium on “Oberlin-based Perspectives on the Obama Presidency” in conjunction with Oberlin College’s commencement exercises and the 50th reunion of its class of 1961.

A professor of politics at the college, describing Oberlin students’ judgment of President Barack Obama, said it had cooled significantly — sometimes to the point of disillusionment. At the same time, a commentary in The Oberlin Review, signed by four of the newspaper’s undergraduate editors, bemoaned that “much of the campus community” had left political activism “to a small subset of engaged students.”

Oberlin is one of the United States’ most traditionally — read doggedly — liberal and distinguished small colleges. Always earnest, often estimable and not particularly wacky in terms of lifestyle, Oberlin, located 35 miles, or 55 kilometers, southwest of Cleveland with an enrollment of 2,800, describes itself as the first college in America to have had a policy of admitting students of color (1835), and the first to grant bachelor’s degrees to women (1841)...

[Doctor Hurt]

1. Why anyone would fall "in love" with a politician is beyond me

A politician is a means to an end, or a means to many ends. They are tools, like a screwdriver, or a swiss army knife.

I may appreciate those items, but I do not love them.

[Hawkowl]

9. Youth

The young fall in love, and become cynical and disillusioned. That is what has happened with Obama. They will become re-engaged in politics but then next time they may have more realistic expectations as well as demand more before committing themselves.

[MineralMan]

2. It's a mistake to "fall in love" with any politician.

By the very nature of politics in the US, nothing is set in stone, and every politician has to adapt to real-life conditions. Promises made at one point may not be possible to implement. That's the reality of it all.

[RainDog]

3. the article is not about literally being "in love"

it's about the expectations people had of Obama based upon the things he said in his speeches before his election.

It's about the expectation that a democrat would not compromise with the brain dead and heartless on the right.

It's about the reality that students, who did A LOT of work for the Obama campaign, don't think he's acted in ways that make him worth doing the same sort of legwork this time around.

Obama has become another "lesser of two evils" vote in the minds of many - when they thought his historic election would signal a move away from the failed right wing shift in this nation over a generation.

On issue after issue, he has worked to maintain the status quo - which isn't working for the majority of the population.

The Rentiers aren't the only people in this nation who matter.

[FiveGoodMen]

4. Not romantic love, of course.

But lots of personality cult type of love going on.

[RainDog]

5. students thought "hope and change" were more than just b.s.

they hoped Obama was in the vein of RFK - that his community work demonstrated an appreciation of the troubles facing the middle and working classes, who have been routinely decimated by right wing policies.

when people argue that... well, would you have Obama be like Bush and push through this or that...

the answer is YES. A LOT of people thought that the right wing in this nation had so over-reached that big correctives were (and are) needed and the president should've used his position to flex political muscle to undo as many of these errors as possible.

I mean, if you have a president that laughs at rule of law and a vice president that, over the ENTIRE COURSE OF HIS CAREER demonstrated he was a crazed ideologue with NO real comprehension of what was happening in this world (check out Cheney's record vis a vis Mandela and apartheid, the fall of the Soviet Bloc, etc. etc. - he was ALWAYS ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY) you wouldn't think it is overreach to correct the horrors perpetrated by a brain-dead president and a Dr. Strangelove vice president - in fact, you would think they were necessary correctives.

[FrenchieCat]

11. they hoped Obama was in the vein of RFK ????

Although I'm sure that most remember that RFK was brutatly gunned down,
and therefore was never elected President and never governed....


I find it more than unfair to hold Obama up against someone whose death still pains us
to this day, as some of us do sometimes wonder.....What if RFK would have lived, what kind of
President would he have been? That question can't ever be answered, and therefore, there is
no "vein" to contrast and compare.

RFK, like Obama made speeches while running for President....
However, unlike Obama's, there were no real RFK accomplishments,
as there was no RFK presidency to put into actions his words from his campaign....

[GOTV]

7. Were that not the case you wouldn't have seen so many "dreamy" picture threads ...

... and they still haven't died but they are thankfully more rare.

[George Wythe]

6. That's what happens when you follow "leaders"

instead of ideas.

[Kurmudgeon]

8. He's still better than any R out there, and especially McCain-Palin.

[Hawkowl]

10. Living Republican

He is far worse than a lot of dead ones. Eisenhower, T. Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Nixon, etc.

[yurbud]

12. worse than Hoover? The others had their progressive tendencies, but Hoover?