The following, "The Election - The Inspiring and the Ugly," by CPJ member and regular columnist in the Dunkirk Observer, Daniel O'Rourke, was published on Thursday November 27, 2008.
I wasn’t going to write about the presidential election. The print media has already poured barrels of ink over it. To call it historic is now a cliché. On election night both McCain’s concession speech and Obama’s victory acknowledgment were eloquent, magnanimous and healing. Wiser columnists than I have written sagely about the election, but here are some thoughts on the election’s aftermath.
Jesse Jackson’s tears caught on TV in Chicago’s Grant Park as the networks flashed the news of the election of the first Black president moved me. Subsequent coverage of enthusiastic worldwide reactions from old Europe, to emerging Asia, to ancient Africa also made me proud to be an American.
The White House visit of the President Elect and his wife and the gracious welcome by President and Laura Bush were lessons in how a true democracy hands over power. It was a dramatic example to the world. The winners in many elections are fortunate if the loser doesn’t poison, assassinate or exile them. Think Viktor Yushchenko in the Ukraine, Benazir Bhuto in Pakistan, or Morgan Tsvanirai in Zimbabwe.
I listened in admiration to the President-Elect’s calm, intelligent answers on “Sixty Minutes” during Steve Kroft’s wide-ranging interview. President Bill Clinton could also speak intelligently in complete grammatical paragraphs, but unlike Clinton the president-to-be also exhibited calmness and discipline. Bill Clinton might have been a Rhodes Scholar, but he had the discipline of a tomcat. Obama has the discipline of a Zen monk -- without, of course, the celibacy.
Michelle Obama has emerged in this post election period as a strong, intelligent and loving wife. The interplay between her and her husband on “60 Minutes” was tender and endearing. She will speak up and he will listen. She will bring him back to earth if he tends to get too full of himself. She will point out his humanity and limitations. She will be no Nancy Reagan staring star-struck at her man, nor a Hillary Clinton competing fiercely with hers, but she will be a strong, influential and steadying influence.
Napoleon Bonaparte once told his French colleagues, "A leader is a "dealer in hope." That’s what Franklin Roosevelt gave this nation in the 1930s. That’s what Ronald Reagan gave us in the 1980s. And whatever our politics, we should anticipate that our young president can also galvanize this nation with hope. Today we sorely need that optimism.
Obama will need all the help he can get. In many ways he’s inheriting a broken country. We’re facing a global financial meltdown with two wars and an over-stretched military. Unemployment is up and housing starts down. The auto industry is on the verge of bankruptcy. The stock market gyrates dangerously like a drunk on a roller coaster. No matter for whom we voted, Obama is our President and we must unite
behind him.
Some have criticized Obama’s appointments as overly representative of those who once served President Clinton. The same folks who once labeled Obama too inexperienced are now knocking him for appointing experienced Washington hands, but he’s not appointing cronies. There are no old friends like Alberto Gonzales from Texas or Mack McLarty, a crony from Arkansas who was Bill Clinton’s first chief of staff. McLarty only lasted one year; he was a disaster. So was Gonzales. Sadly, as Attorney General he lasted much longer.
The intellectual quality of Obama’s appointments, moreover, underscores his self-confidence. He has not surrounded himself with “yes” men or women. He likes the clash of ideas. He will hear them out and make his own decisions. In that way his cabinet will be more like Franklin Roosevelt’s than Abraham Lincoln’s team of rivals.
On the shadow side, Obama’s election has given rise to a wave of racial hate. The Associate Press reported that William Ferris from the University of South Carolina explained that a Black president is “the most profound change in the field of race this country has experienced since the Civil War. It’s shaking the foundation on which the country has existed for centuries.” That foundation regrettably, especially but not only in the South, was slavery, bigotry and discrimination.
The AP reported that far from the South “in Standish, Maine a sign inside the Oak Hill General Store read: Osama Obama Shotgun Pool. Customers could sign up to bet a dollar on a date when Obama would be killed.”
A district official in Rexburg, Idaho said second and third grade students on a school bus chanted “assassinate Obama.” Bigots burned crosses in Obama supporters’ front yards in Hardwick, NJ and Apolacan Township, PA. What does this say about this country’s racism? It would be naïve to think this election has excised it from the national soul. As William Ferris remarked, “Racism is like cancer. It’s never totally wiped out, it’s in remission” -- and after this election it
has again metastasized.
Obama’s election has been a recruitment boon for the Ku Klux Klan. A newly energized KKK is using the Internet to recruit others who think they should eliminate the national humiliation of a Black family in the White House. According to authorities reported by the Associate Press, Obama has received more threats of violence than any other president-elect.
In Swahili the word “Barak” means blessing. All of us should hope that his administration will deliver that blessing. We should pray that the benevolent universe that has somehow brought him to us would guide him in his judgments and protect him from the racial hate and violence that still lurks in too many twisted minds.
Retired from the administration at SUNY Fredonia, Daniel O’Rourke lives in Cassadaga, NY. His column appears in the Observer, Dunkirk, NY on the second and fourth Thursday each month. A grandfather, Dan is a married Catholic priest. He has published "The Spirit at Your Back," a book of his previous columns. To read about the book or send comments on this column visit his website: danielcorourke.com
