Just to be perfectly clear: I remember Bill Clinton. I remember that many Americans thought very highly of him, and considered his presidency to have been an unqualified success, and deemed criticism of the man to have been unjust and a partisan witch hunt.
But I just don’t remember him being the recipient of the sort of adulation that President Obama is currently receiving. The farewells. The tearfulness. The praise that he’s a shining example of a father, a husband, that he has worked tirelessly and unselfishly for the American people, and has shown his love for each and every American — and besides which is exceptionally intelligent, exceptionally cool, professorial in a good way, and so on. It seems to go beyond, far beyond, a satisfaction with favorable developments that occurred during Obama’s presidency, and, to be honest, creeps me out as being just a bit too close to that sort of adoration that we’re used to seeing, well, in those sorts of places where the Great Leader’s photograph is in every home.
Links? No, I don’t have links. It comes across my twitter feed from pundits, and my facebook feed, as facebook friends sharing something from Vox.com or another left/progressive outlet, or a link to Obama’s speech, and talking about how teary-eyed it made them and how sad they are that he’s leaving.
Even when it was reported that Obama gave Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which seemed to me to be cronyism and an abuse of the meaning of the award (even though apparently it has precedent, it still shouldn’t happen — this award should be for a greater achievement than managing to be re-elected a sufficient number of times, and shouldn’t be given to someone with whom the giver has a close relationship), a facebook friend praised him for this as an act of generosity.
Now, maybe here I simply am too young. Maybe Republicans got teary-eyed over Ronald Reagan as well. Or maybe this is as much about Trump, and worry about what he does, as Obama. Or maybe this is a matter of facebook and the echo chamber that it produces, and the fact that facebook makes its money off people getting teary-eyed, though typically over Upworthy or other inspirational videos; maybe that’s conditioned people to be teary-eyed over inspirational things.
But — having said all that: if you’re in the category of those who are teary-eyed, please tell me why. I’m serious — I’m not going to reply back in comments about why I disagree. OK, I may reply back pressing for more specifics, asking you for things that he has concretely done that a generic Democrat wouldn’t have done anyway: it was a given that he would sign the stimulus bill, and Obamacare, despite his name being on it, was something developed by House and Senate leaders. Do you think — and for what reasons — that there was something truly special about President Obama?
image: from Wikimedia Commons, public domain
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