An American President

Take two.

One of my favorite movies is the movie “Miracle.” If you have not seen Miracle, it is the very true story of the 1980 US Olympic Hockey Team. I say very true story because that story was a significant part of my life. Not that I was on the team or anything, but I was living in Rhode Island, going to a private high school there, and watching my cousin play hockey with and against a number of the players that were members of that team. It was also a very memorable time to be living in this country in general given the gas lines, and the “odd and even plate” days, President Jimmy Carter, the peanuts, Billy Beer, the 1972 Olympic hostage situation and then the boycott just prior to the 1980 winter Olympics. This was a time of great concern and great stress in this country. This was a time of great concern and great stress on this planet. The cold war was very much still in full swing and there was a real hatred for the then Soviet Union.

As much as that was a time one would never forget, this is a time far worse than anything I have lived through. The sentiment I remember from back then was one of us against them. There was the Soviet Union and there was the United States and if you watch at the end of Miracle all the people across the country that showed support for a bunch of college hockey players because they played for the United States, that sentiment was very real, very palpable.

Today, the sentiment is one of keep your head down and say your prayers and maybe you will come out of this current state our country is in ok. We are a country divided and we have been for the last three elections, an entire decade of not being able to get behind one man, one Presidency, one administration. We need this now more than ever as we have record numbers of people out of work, we have foreclosures happening constantly, we seem to have reached a point where even the richest of Americans have cut back on their spending, and we need an answer.

With an approval rating of 59 % for President Obama, I am not sure we have gotten there yet, especially since that is down ten points from his high of 69 %, but last week I at least felt some hope. It may be false hope, but at this point I will take any hope at all. If I were crawling my way through the desert without any water right now I would “drink the sand.” Michael J. Fox used that phrase in the movie by the same title as this piece. The movie is a bit sappy, but one I have always liked, and it gave birth to a show that had a few viewers over its seven year run, “The West Wing.”

Both are appropriate references here because that is the kind of President we need right now; A President that is going to roll up his sleeves and get to work, A President that will work with the people of this country, and other counties to solve problems, A President with the energy to go at this for as long as it takes, and an understanding of what it is like to be suffering through this right now.

I don’t know if President Obama is the type of President I am speaking of, and I don’t think we will know ultimately for another six to eight years, if he gains re-election, but he just seems closer than what we have had in a long time. I am not basing this on what he has done in office to this point because the country is still pretty well “screwed up,” but I am basing this on the fact that this President seems more like an American, even a human, than any we have had in a while, if ever.

This is a President from Illinois, he is a sports fan, he is a White Sox fan, which puts him in the “blue collar” crowd even though he is not overly blue collar at this point. This is a President that appears honest and down to earth and real, and for me that is more than I can say for most, if not all that have been in that office in my lifetime.

As far as I know President Obama has not done anything in the Oval Office to disgrace the country, not that I think President Clinton was a bad President, but his brain was not always in the on position. As far as I know President Obama did not have a family member “fix” any elections, and he was not his family’s second, or third, or fourth choice to run for President. As far as I know President Obama does not have a brother brewing beer in the Rose Garden, and he has never been in a movie, and I also happen to think that President Reagan was a good president and a good man, if only we could say that of a current movie star California Governor, what were the Kennedys thinking allowing that marriage to occur?

I just think that this is a President that is a true American, and one that is far more in touch with what is going on in this country than any President we have had in a while. I only hope that we are not too far gone, and I hope that my gut is right.

Thank you again for getting this far with me.