A new day dawns, it does indeed …

[aadler]

 
Welcome, Mister President.

You arrived in this office on a message of hope and change. The change has come. These are my hopes:

I hope you’re even one-tenth as special as your most enraptured supporters appear to believe.

I hope you’re every bit as idealistic as you’ve presented yourself as being, and at the same time cynically calculating as to which campaign promises you intend to keep (and how), because winning a campaign and running a country are entirely different tasks, not to be carried out in the same way.

I hope there is solid substance underlying the magnificent style, resulting in years of impressive performance to (finally) fulfill all that perceived potential.

I hope that, having won largely on the basis of race — while presenting yourself as post-racial — you can actually move this country beyond the dogmatic straitjacket of racial politics.

I hope you can inspire both parties, but especially your own, to more idealism and less ideological posturing.

I hope you will actively resist the desires of some on your side of the aisle to attempt the ex post facto criminalization of policy differences. This is a sword that cuts both ways, and would do incalculable harm to the nation for decades to come, regardless of which side happens to be in power.

I hope the man who turned the national imagination toward the future will avoid falling back on those past nostrums (particularly socialism and New-Deal-style big-government interventionism) that not only aren’t new but were consistent failures in their own heyday.

I hope “the smartest guy in every room he’s ever occupied” will have the wisdom to surround himself by people who know more than he does, and listen carefully to them before making his decisions.

Above all, I hope the next four years — or more — will be a time of actual growth in this country, rather than something that simply has to be survived.

[Advance warning: any comments expounding on the evils and contemptibility of the departed Bush administration will be deleted without reply.]

Comments

[lmzjewel.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I didn't party yesterday. I will party when and if he's able to pull off even half of what he needs to. With that said, I do feel a great deal of sympathy for our new President. There is alot of expectations put on his shoulders and even in the best of times I would not want his job. Well, anyway, here's to hoping that he will lead the country with wisdom and integrity.

[aadler]

I do indeed anticipate a huge backlash — disappointment, disillusionment, even a sense of betrayal — when he fails to live up to expectations so extravagant that no non-divine figure ever could fulfill them. In a way, he has it coming, because he recognized and stoked these expectations in order to win; he is, however, President now, and a new President deserves a fair chance to prove himself in office.