Talkin bout the Inauguration (part one)

Talking bout an inauguration * (to the tune of Tracy Chapman’s Talkin bout the revolution)
Part One: Obama – the “real deal”

Well the Obama coronation…oops I mean inauguration…has come and gone. Unlike many blockbuster events it lived up to the hype. In fact it was so true to the plot that I often thought I had blundered onto an episode of the “West Wing”. There is no doubting the expectations, call it the vaunting hope of much (even most) of the population that is projected upon Obama. On that spookily apt website “Stuff that White Folks like” it lists Obama as one thing because white folks are scared of being called racist if they don’t like him. It is funny, yes, but very wide of the mark. Looking around the crowd on election night, at the inauguration and even at the faces on the campus there is a genuine fervour. It is more than just the relief of release after eight years of Bush. There is something about Obama that inspires and captivates in a way that I imagine that JFK in the heyday of his Camelot mesmerised the US people. And it is beyond the US too. Just as JFK offered up “Ich bin ein Berliner” the rapturous greeting of Obama in that same city prior to the election was a clear indication that the world was ready for someone like him. Undoubtedly he ticks all the boxes. I was prompted to think (again) of the West Wing when Josh Lynam tries to recruit the character Sam (Rob Lowe) to join the Matt Santos (read: Obama) campaign for President. Previously they had worked for President Jeb Bartlett (Martin Sheen) – who was everyone’s dream of what a President should be (perhaps until now?). Josh tries to recruit Sam back to the world of political electioneering and ells him Santos is the “real deal”. Well Matt Santos is/was Obama and, in a long winded roundabout way, I have to say Obama is the “real deal.”

So what then are the things that go to making the “real deal”? Well, for a start, he works out everyday and even went shirtless while holidaying in Hawaii over Christmas, sending the wire services into melt-down. Big plus having a jock President who loves to play pick-up basketball but doesn’t look like he has stumbled off the set of a Rambo shoot when he goes shirtless (which is the effect that Putin had when he was snapped in the outdoors, in his battle fatigues and sans shirt) Secondly, Obama is a geek, embraced by the geeks as one of their own for his love of comic books and all things technical, and in particular his Blackberry. The distinction between McCain and him in the election campaign was made so clear when McCain confided that his wife did his “internet stuff”. Importantly, however, as one techno-geek on radio commented, there is a profound difference between a “nerd” and a “geek”, and Obama certainly does not fit the former category.
Next up, Obama is indisputably a smooth dresser, with those suits and ties he brings into sharp focus the bad dress sense of many US politicians and particularly, by all accounts, the entire populace of Washington DC. From an Australian perspective he is akin to Paul Keating and his beautiful suits after so many years of politicians in polyester safari suits. So he is a handsome, snappy dressing geeky guy but it is also important to note that he is also an uncompromising “alpha male”. It was hilarious to watch his body language with Dubya at the first meeting at the White House after the election where they jockeyed for position to be the one to put the hand on the other’s back and to guide their direction with the other hand. I had visions of Graeco-roman wrestling where the two wrestlers slap away each other’s hand as they try to gain a hold that they can turn to advantage. If any more evidence was needed on Obama’s alpha status it was leaked yesterday that in his first day in office he had the public greeting with the Republicans where consensus and compromise was the buzz-word. Then, when the room was cleared he said simply to the Republicans (and perhaps to his own Democrat colleagues) two words, “I won”. What was clever is that Obama said it in private but made sure it was leaked, so you know that he listens, he thinks about what is said but he is the boss. It is so different from the time under the (mis)rule of Dubya, where Cheney was sure for most of the time that, in fact, the Vice President was the most powerful position in the country. Obama has lifted the moniker of “the Boss” from Bruce Springsteen, and I have to say he wears it well.
If Obama’s credentials weren’t enough on their own, you also have in Michelle Obama someone who seems a very savvy First Lady. It seems that she is someone who is obviously not the politician trophy-wife (think John McCain) or a Lady MacBeth type character (sorry Hilary) who believes her moment must come. She is not the retiring librarian type like Laura Bush (who was a librarian before taking leave of her senses and joining the Bush dynasty at Southfork…no hold on, that was Dallas, but you get the picture). Just as Obama is so much of this generation and the here and now, so too is Michelle Obama a style icon (already), is savvy and, as one person put it, the first First Lady of whom it can be said that she works out, is cut and has a butt. There is also Michelle’s mother, Mary Robinson, who lives with them in the White House and minds the kids. In this the Obama’s strike a chord with working families around the US where a parent lives in to help with the raising of the children. And finally the kids, who are so scarily perfect that you have to wonder if the whole family have strayed off the lot of a Disney picture. They, Obama, his family are simultaneously real and grounded, yet representative of the hopes for a whole country. They are the real deal and lord knows the US needs something real to believe in now.