Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of Barack Obama’s being sworn in as the 44th President of the United States of America.  In the aftermath of his win, a great deal of hope seized the American public.  Needless to say, things have changed a bit in the year since.

After oftentimes-grotesque brawls over everything from where to put Guantanamo Bay detainees to health-care reform, the Change seemingly promised by Obama’s election has never quite come to fruition.  It does serve a purpose, however, to remember how we all felt a year ago, on the precipice of such an historic Presidency.  If anything, the two sides of our political debate are more dug-in, more combative, and less willing to compromise than they were a year ago, which is a real shame.  Things seemed ready to take a turn for the better, when instead they either stayed the same or got worse.

But let’s take a trip back to that Tuesday in late-January of 2009.  For one of our first pieces, Craig and I discussed what the election of Barack Obama meant to us.  From my perspective, and I can only speak for myself, I still feel the same way as I did back then, full of hope and believing some modicum of change in Washington is possible.

Today, however, I do feel a little more naive regarding these beliefs.

****************************************************************

Hope. Change. Progress. The fruition of Martin Luther King’s Dream for America.

The election of Barack Obama has meant a lot of things to a lot of different people. The event’s importance, on cosmic and historical as well as basic human levels, cannot be overstated. A man with an African father has risen to the highest office in a country that only recently allowed those of African descent equal protection under the law as those of white European descent. A new age, it would seem, has dawned.

Now that he is officially in office, however, Americans are suffering from a bit of Historical Occasion Fatigue, as well as from He Needs Time to Get to Work Fatigue, not to mention Let’s See How Your Messiah Does Now Fatigue, courtesy of all the cynics out there (also known as Be Careful What You Wish For Fatigue).

In the first installment of our Back and Forth series, we will discuss the new President, now that he is the President, no longer a candidate for vague concepts like Hope and Change but rather the guy with the nuclear launch codes. After a brutal eight years and a punishing campaign, a new regime is in place. So what, exactly, does this mean to us?

JP:

A friend of ours put it well during the election: maybe America has had enough of Rich White Dudes. As movers surreptitiously cleaned out the Bush family’s stuff during the Inauguration ceremony, I had a sense that the strife and public rancor of the last eight years, my first eight as an adult, can honestly be moved on from with a some effort on everybody’s part. The fact that Dick Cheney ran out of his supply of Children’s Tears (or whatever it was he drank to seem so human and keep him out of wheelchairs) on the last day in office only added to the feeling that what we’ve come to expect from American leadership can fade into America’s troubled past.

The networks having to uncomfortably tip-toe around the Bush legacy while trying to prop up the grandeur of the moment also added to this feeling, as did the look on Bill Clinton’s face when he shook W’s hand (Bill’s too smart not to judge all that he sees, and the smile betrayed a healthy dose of loathing). For so long it seemed like the rich and powerful were getting away with something terrible. Perhaps that time can soon be over.

Craig:

Not sure if Dick Cheney was drinking Children’s Tears over the years, but he sure as hell looked like an evil old man sitting in his wheel chair. If nothing else, at least he might get cast for a villain in the next season of 24.

Until today, I did not realize how grateful we should all feel as Americans that our transition of power comes so seamlessly. We experience no war, treasonous acts, or secession when someone gets elected from a rival party. Our last President transitions his power without a fight and then steps into reasonable obscurity, sometimes with a smile (see George W. Bush). That is something to be valued in a world with such aggression.

That being said, I’d like a glass of “He Needs to Get to Work” juice. You can already see a change in his speech writing after he won the election, from: “WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD; YES WE CAN!!” to “Oh sh*t….ummmm, this might take some time….America’s strength has always been in the people, not the government!!”. Well dude, excuse me, Mr. President, you asked for the big boy shoes. It’s time to step up and deliver a rather large dose of that “YES WE CAN CHANGE”, rather quickly, because that is what you promised the approx 69.5 million that voted for you.

JP:

Valid cynicism, Craig.

I’ve been hearing recently about the inevitable bursting of the “Hope Bubble” when Obama gets to work and finds deadlocked legislators who, while appreciating what the election means for American history, won’t care so much about the President as about pleasing constituents back home. Which is as it should be. But you cannot discredit a guy for saying what he needed to say to get elected. As he came down the stairs to start the inaugural ceremony, though, you could almost see his eyes widen for a tenth of a second, the calm façade fade, and read his thoughts as he said internally, “Oh, fuck.” And a nanosecond later, he was fine.

But it’s like anything else: you do what you have to do to get in the door, and then once inside, you can sort of figure it out from there. We’d like to believe the Presidency is this elevated position that says something important about the people who assume it, but the past eight years have proven, if there were still any doubt after Blowjobgate, that the President is just another American male, only more ambitious and better connected.

Now that our man got the job, the times call for pragmatism and a long view, not delusional vigor. The fact that he got himself elected in the first place, from where he started, and in as short a time as he swung it, gives me hope that he’s a sharp dude who can get shit accomplished. Needless to say, the way W got elected gave decidedly less hope in this regard.

Craig:

Well, I hope we didn’t elect a motivational speaker President instead of a battle hardened Senator that has years of experience. I am all for using what you can to get in the door, but usually that hinges on past legislative/executive experience. Not this time. He single handedly won the election on motivational speaking while atop the hope bubble.

I thought one of the best parts of today was the level of tension in the semicircle behind the newly elected President. You’ve got George H.W. Bush looking at Clinton thinking, “If this slut didn’t steal my second term, this would all be different.” Then there’s Al Gore looking at George W. Bush thinking, “I beat your dumb ass by 500,000 votes and should be sitting where you are right now.” Hilary’s staring into the sky thinking, “They should be talking about the first woman President, damn Obama, came out of nowhere.” Lastly Bill Clinton is scanning the crowd thinking, “I’d do her, I’d do her, maybe after ten beers with her, cigar only with that one…let’s get to the ball and start the party already.” You can’t tell me right now everyone in the Bush, Gore, and Clinton families didn’t getting drunk as hell for some reason or another Inauguration Night.

JP, didn’t Obama promise a ticket to the ball with a vote? Or was that not in the promises package on the hope bubble? What the hell, man?

JP:

Forget about the tension on stage. Can you imagine the tension in the limo that Cheney and Biden shared on the way to ceremony? Just the two of them, a week after Biden said, “I know as much or more than Cheney. I’m the most experienced vice president since anybody”? Cheney called Biden a son of a bitch at least once. Either that or he enshrouded the limo in an impenetrable silence, which for someone as gregarious as Biden scared him more than anything else could. Can we be certain Cheney isn’t actually a Dementor?

To answer your question, though, the gift package I received for my vote was knowledge that I voted for a ticket I could take pride in, one that I thought would be working on behalf of the American people. McCain sold his soul for an image he thought would get him elected. Had he stuck to his guns and not brought the borderline-psychotic airhead down the road with him, who knows what could’ve happened. What we do know is the man that crafted a message in direct opposition to a crumbling regime, a message for a larger America looking for something else other than the horseshit we’ve been forced to swill for eight years, a message that seemed as though he was actually paying attention to the way things had been going and thought he’d figured out a better way to do business, is the man that got himself elected.

But come on, Craig: in the core of your being, you know America is a shambles in several different ways after years of negligent direction. Give BHO some time to see what he can do. It’s an emotional time to be an American. Why not celebrate the stuff we learned about in Social Studies coming to fruition in your lifetime?

Craig:

I am in on the celebration, so long as Bill Clinton is the party head.

I do acknowledge that the country is in a bad spot. And while I don’t agree 100% with every decision Bush has made, you can’t help but feel sorry for that man. Leaving office with a 22% approval rating and having parts of the mall break out in “Nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, goodbye” as you walk off into the sunset is a straight kick in the balls.

But let’s give some initial credit where credit is due. I don’t know if Obama put together this Inaugural Ball on ABC, but good lord, congrats to him if he did. Beyonce, Faith Hill, Shakira, Alicia Keys and Mariah Carey singing and then Kate Walsh and Lucy Lui presenting…holy hell, man. If that was his first executive order, then this country is in good hands.

Is it too late for me to get in on the hope bubble?

JP:

Not at all, Craig. There’s plenty of room. The more, the merrier. That’s been the point all along: all aboard the Hope Train, and let’s see what we can accomplish together.

I don’t really feel bad for Bush, no. He is unsympathetic, and his continued bleating that history will judge him kindly seems to me more of a plea to wait until you die before your judge him, because then you won’t be able to and no one will be around to attest to the fact that he sucked so horribly bad at a time when the country needed sound leadership most. What’s more likely is that he will fade into history in much the fashion those poor bastards immediately prior to Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt did, in a position just before true greatness, and someone will look at a picture of all the Presidents in a hundred years and ask, “Who the fuck is this jackass?”

Or anyway we can hope that’s what will happen, because that is what he deserves. Only time will tell, and we are starting fresh, baby! Up, up, and away! Giving the new guy a fair shake before you judge him is all any of us are asking. All the rhetoric has faded into history, and we find ourselves in a position to see what Americans are made of, if we can do this and earn anew the high opinions we hold of ourselves. I, for one, am looking forward to the challenge.

Anything you would care to add, my good man?

Craig:

All and all, I think things are going to work out all right for this country. We always rebound and, if nothing else, it looks like America has some optimism still in it after the past year’s nose-dive. Let’s just hope that along with everything else that Obama is facing, he still remembers to take some shots at the BCS and throws his weight around to get us a playoff system in the next BCS contract. College football needs CHANGE now!! COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF 2012, YES WE CAN!! (Hey, he used it to win the Presidency, why not this?)