THE PREACHER AND THE SON OF A BITCH



Over the weekend I watched some of Barrack Obama’s trip to Israel and the occupied territories, -such is the life of the political geek. 
Obama is an extraordinarily eloquent speaker, he knows instinctively  how to use his voice to maxim effect, inflection and emphasis, nuance and rhetoric are all there. He is certainly the best presidential speaker in my lifetime, which includes Kennedy. However therein lies the nature of the man, he is a preacher, albeit humane, well mannered, erudite and eloquent, a truly civilized man. Words and good intentions however do not change anything, indeed devoid of action all Obama’s eloquence is simply windy rhetoric. Put another way, Obama is now into his second term, what has he achieved? He has managed to steer a moderate reform of healthcare passed a rabid Republican party. What else has he done?

Place his record up against another US President who held office during troubling times. Lyndon Johnson. Johnson was no preacher; he was a machine politician, who emerged from the moral cesspit of Southern Democrat politicians. A son of a bitch who it did not do to cross; when Johnson had you by the balls you knew it. Yet Johnson passed more progressive legislation in one year than Obama has managed throughout his entire tenure. After receiving his overwhelming mandate in 1964 Johnson was advised against pushing too hard on his War On Poverty, to hold fire on civil rights legislation; Johnson replied by saying “But what then is the Presidency for?”
He then set to work pushing an agenda he knew would make fierce enemies, because he believed it to be the right thing and was determined to make the US a fairer place; but for the crime of the Vietnam war, which remember, he inherited from the saintly Kennedy, he would be remembered as a great president.

How will we remember Barrack Obama?  



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