It’s been an interesting year, hasn’t it? And here, near the end, we get a payoff that has been almost two years in the making — the end of an historic presidential campaign and election. Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States of America, and he doesn’t quite look like the previous 42 men who have been President in one fairly obvious way. However, he looks like a few in a couple of other ways.
He kind of looks like John Kennedy, doesn’t he? Young, energetic, from a new demographic. His charisma opens doors to him that were closed to others before.
And isn’t there a hint of FDR in the contextual details of this portrait? A man elected to bring hope to a sleeping lion of a nation, dejected and demoralized by an economic famine and a financial pestilence stoked by the flames of regulatory indifference.
View the picture from another angle — and have we spotted a few Ronald Reagan brushstrokes in there? A communicator to express the mood of a nation. A strong voice with which to conduct diplomacy, to stand with — and stand up to — the world. “This is what America is,” the voice will say, and its words will not fall to the ground.
And is that a bit of Lincoln I see in this picture? Upon his election in 1860, half the country wanted out. It’s certainly felt like that on occasion in this campaign, hasn’t it? And yet a reconciliation was made — forced, really — and a stronger country eventually came out of it.
There are nuances yet to be discovered in this picture. The portrait has only been started, after all. Will there be a hint of Washington, of Teddy Roosevelt? Shades of Jefferson, maybe, or Polk? Will some Truman enter the picture — the will to do what needs to be done, though history may revile him for it?
One can only hope that the picture stays free of Grant’s and Buchannan’s weak features, of Hoover and G.W. Bush — wrong place, wrong time, wrong responses. Of small men, forgotten by all but kids and historians who can recite the names of the Presidents. Nixon disgraced himself after years of public service, his crime having become a catchword for political fiascos ever since. Hayes prematurely ended Reconstruction, thinking the job was done, and inadvertantly opened the door for Jim Crow. How soon is too soon to end a war? We’ll soon find out.
Lord knows, we don’t need the final strokes of this portrait to end like Lincoln, McKinley or Kennedy, or even to have a ripple of the sort Reagan had (a ripple called Hinckley).
Yes, our new President is different. But not completely.
Tonight, I sing The Star-Spangled Banner. I sing God Bless America. But I also sing Lift Every Voice and Sing, and sing it until earth and heaven ring. Will you sing it with me?