And many of us cried with them in the middle of our night. The election of Barack Obama this time last year brought hope, rejoicing and relief in equal measure to a world
battered by eight years of bombast and belligerence.
Twelve months later, the new President and his many millions of global admirers have learned the hard way that the self-styled “most important office in the world” can also be the most frustrating. An American President does, of course, wield vast power, but can also be rendered largely impotent by the vagaries of the Congressional system.
Thus were many early weeks devoted not just to formulating a response to an inherited fiscal mess, but in getting it on to the statute books. Thus did the summer campaign for near-
universal health insurance bleed into late autumn and has yet to negotiate the final vote in a Senate, where the aspiration of a new era of bipartisan politics has all but evaporated. Thus, too, did a truly ground-breaking deal on carbon emissions and fuel efficiency, struck with the car industry, run into the customary roadblocks erected by commercial lobbyists and an oil industry accustomed to having the Bush presidency in its pocket.
Meanwhile, well-motivated attempts to kickstart the Middle East peace process seem to have been largely derailed, not least by persistent Israeli intransigence in continuing to build illegal settlements, Iran spurning the hand of friendship, troop withdrawal from Iraq being behind schedule, and a policy of shoring up security for the Afghan elections being repaid by wholesale and casual corruption. And that’s to say nothing of the fast-deteriorating situation in Pakistan, assorted basket-case governments in Africa and the sabre-rattling by North Korea. Oh, and did I mention, the world going to hell in a carbon-fuelled handcart? Who would wish Obama’s in tray?
Yet there is another tale to tell of this first 12 months, a tale often drowned by the chorus of vituperation from right-wing commentators who can’t quite forgive the 44th President for failing to be an all-American white boy. This is a President who, within 48 hours of taking office, signed an order to close Guantanamo Bay by the end of January. His efforts to make good on that pledge have not faltered for lack of presidential will, but the failure of American states and so-called allies to take their share of those prisoners able to be released. He banned the use of coercive intelligence gathering.
He has used the fiscal stimulus to pump money into education and green initiatives. He has binned the ban on stem-cell research, and remained solid on gay rights and equal pay. He has started to clear the lobbyists from Capital Hill, demanding transparency as to who is paying elected representatives for what. And, despite enforced compromises around insurance for legal abortions, he looks on course to deliver what no other President has managed: health care that gives cover to millions of Americans who, quite literally, can’t afford to be sick.
Derided for his “dithering” on whether to accede to his military commanders’ demands for thousands more troops in Afghanistan, he has chosen instead to give this seemingly intractable conflict the benefit of proper consideration, summoning and weighing up a breadth of advice beyond those whose day job is solely concerned with fighting wars.
His wife and family have brought grace and charm and an extraordinary down-to-earth quality to an existence that can never quite aspire to normality. He displays an enviable ability to remain unruffled amid turmoil, an important virtue in those entrusted with the nuclear code box.
In sum, he is a man who doubtless has much to learn about the darker arts of bending the political process to his personal will, a man who may well have to plead guilty to a degree of naivety and inexperience.
But he is a man whose evident intelligence, humanitarian instincts, natural eloquence and instinctive decency have provided a welcome counterpoint to the Bush years and effected a transformation in the world view of his country.
Many happy returns, Mr President.
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