5 Moments from the Obama Presidency

FOTP Friday List for … January 5, 2018

Since the republic will fall any day now, let’s take one last look at a time, not too long ago, when most of the country still had most of its senses and wanted a president who was articulate, stable, curious, knowledgable, faithful to the people and institutions around him, intelligent, decent, and didn’t cheat at golf.

Those were the days huh?

1. November 4, 2008 (Grant Park) His election victory — that it actually happened, that he actually won. Two other things about this night: 1) The contrast between Obama’s acceptance speech in Chicago and McCain’s concession in Phoenix and a muzzled Sarah Palin, and 2) The day would have been my son’s 25th birthday.
2. January, 20, 2009 (Inauguration, Washington, D.C.) Not the speech as much as the postcard he signed to Representative John Lewis after the ceremony with the inscription “Because of you, John.”
3. April 30, 2011 (Washington, DC) Correspondents Association Dinner Weekend. On Friday, Obama visits a storm-ravaged Alabama; on Saturday he skewers Donald Trump; and on Sunday, before monitoring events of the killing of Bin Laden (and not to put too fine a point on this), he plays 9 holes of golf. Bam! (Okay, so Trump used this humiliation as motivation to run and ultimately win the presidency, but it was still quite a performance by the coolest, smartest president many of us will ever know.)
4. December 16, 2012 (Newtown, Connecticut) Obama’s speech after the massacre at Sandy Hook. It’s how a president helps heal a nation.

But we, as a nation, we are left with some hard questions. Someone once described the joy and anxiety of parenthood as the equivalent of having your heart outside of your body all the time, walking around. With their very first cry, this most precious, vital part of ourselves — our child — is suddenly exposed to the world, to possible mishap or malice. And every parent knows there is nothing we will not do to shield our children from harm. And yet, we also know that with that child’s very first step, and each step after that, they are separating from us; that we won’t — that we can’t always be there for them. They’ll suffer sickness and setbacks and broken hearts and disappointments. And we learn that our most important job is to give them what they need to become self-reliant and capable and resilient, ready to face the world without fear. And we know we can’t do this by ourselves. It comes as a shock at a certain point where you realize, no matter how much you love these kids, you can’t do it by yourself. That this job of keeping our children safe, and teaching them well, is something we can only do together, with the help of friends and neighbors, the help of a community, and the help of a nation. And in that way, we come to realize that we bear a responsibility for every child because we’re counting on everybody else to help look after ours; that we’re all parents; that they’re all our children.

5. Mar 7, 2015 (Selma, Alabama) Speech at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. (Nice assist from former President George W. Bush, by the way.) A president of the United States, a black man, speaking in Selma and talking of the stain of slavery, the anguish of the civil war, the yoke of segregation, the tyranny of Jim Crow, the death of four little girls, and the dream of a Baptist preacher “meeting on this bridge.”