Thoughts on the inauguration

A strange feeling came over me as I watched the inauguration this afternoon: a weird sense of being pleased by the outcome of a political event. As modern college students, we are contractually obliged to be cynical and jaded, detached and ironic. But for a small gap of time I didn’t feel any of that. It didn’t really have anything to do anything President Barack Obama said (not that his speech wasn’t good, just that it was what we’ve come to expect from him). It was the sense of actually having respect for a political leader, of being kind of (as pathetic as this sounds) in awe of someone I was “supposed” to be in awe of.

Yesterday I had a similar feeling of happiness, except then it was closer to relief. When a news anchor announced that it was “officially [George W.] Bush’s last day as president” an unconscious smile crossed my face. And it’s not just that I agree with Obama more than I agree with Bush—Bush’s failure transcends policy issues. The Bush Administration was (isn’t that use of the past tense great?) such a failure not just because of what he did but because of what he represented—the glorification of idiocy, the perpetuation of dynastic elections, the entrenchment of a political class, the triumph of “folksy” charm over real intelligence, the elevation of religion and the suspension of the rational, the belief in dogma over practice, etc. Even during the last two months, while we were just waiting for this day, Bush was lingering in the background. Bush and Obama seemed like the co-heads of a dysfunctional country—one so discredited as to be completely incompetent and the other facing absurdly high expectations but with no real authority other than the ability to nominate his cabinet.

Now that Bush is officially gone, I am faced with the weird dilemma of being a cynic who actually respects an elected official. Granted, Obama hasn’t done anything yet. And I still don’t endorse or respect the current political system. In two months from now, maybe Obama will have royally screwed up and I may regret writing this. But right now it feels good to have a president who speaks eloquently and can actually convince me that he knows the meaning of the words he says, whose actions don’t all seem coldly calculated (even if a lot of them are), who is from an urban area and admits so frankly, who is proud of having an educated background, who plays basketball and gives fist-pounds to his wife. Yes, it’s style over substance, but so was John F. Kennedy, and everyone still loves him, right? And let’s be honest, the president’s main role is a symbolic one.

Ted Kennedy’s seizure, then, seems almost as poetic as it is sad. The senescence of the last fraternal link to John F.  Kennedy right after Obama was sworn in seems too heavy-handed to be real. Obama is filling a growing vacuum of public figures untouched by cynicism and disenchantment. It won’t last long, but I’m enjoying it right now.

I still don’t think you should have voted for him, though.