1 Boring Old Man

The Amazing Obama is juggling so many balls in the air that you would think he couldn’t possibly have time for any more. Apparently he’s not overly taxed by the all-consuming economic negotiating, getting his cabinet members confirmed, meeting with his defense team about Iraq and Afghanistan, defining a new policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, meeting with increasingly hostile Republican congressmen to ask for their support on the recovery bill, overturning dozens of bush regulations and restrictions, as well as planning his budget and legislative initiatives. And he does it all while seeming totally cool and utterly competent.

But [as they say on t.v. infommercials], There’s More! He’s setting a tone. It’s not set yet, but it’s becoming clear where he’s headed. I’m thinking that the way he wrote his Inauguration Speech was very specific. He wasn’t aiming for rousing or lifting rhetoric, though there was some – the guy just can’t help it. And he wasn’t aiming to get elected – he’d already done that. I think he sat down and made a list of things that he thought were wrong with the Presidency we have had and the Presidency people want from him.

• There is no authority of wisdom anymore, only the authority of power. Power should only be used when others are not acting wisely, as a last resort, and then used decisively.

It was a short list. He then applied the list to our current problems. And in the last week, he’s dismantled the things that are in place that were power plays and set a wise example. The Republicans are banging at him to get him into power struggles. So are we. Everybody wants to know how Obama is going to use his power and he’s set out to show them – wisely. He’s determined to set a tone, and it’s going to take a while for people to catch on. We’re in a power rut.

The only real power play he’s made so far was to say, "I won." And people have been saying he should’ve said, "We won." Assuming that he never says anything frivolously, I would propose that saying "we won" would drop him into the mess of Democrats versus Republicans, and he doesn’t want to go there. "I won" says "I reserve the right to exercise power if you won’t negotiate in good faith. But I’ll give you a gajillion chances. We can’t build a community with you in it if all you do is power plays, but I’m a patient man. Power plays were Cheney’s game, not mine."

I expect that the crises of his leadership will revolve around things like the Jeramiah Wright saga. He will stay in the game until it becomes absolutely clear that the person he’s dealing with is on an unchanging and untenable trajectory, then he’ll act definitively, letting us know that it’s not the game he wants to play, but he knows how.