Two Day Magazine

Transition Team: Barack and Michelle Obama

It is said of President Clinton, without regret, even by his most ardent supporters, that he was robbed of his place in history by the complete absence of disaster. During his term, September 11th and December 7th, both days that will live in infamy, came and went like any other. Although an able commander, rising to the challenge of great personal, if not national adversity, and enjoying (what especially in the Bush years seems) a rosy presidential approval rating, Clinton presided over a period of relative calm and prosperity. Boredom, even. As such, Bill will never be nominated to join the colossi of Mount Rushmore’s company of faces, those icons bathed in martial glory, the saviors of a republic from the brink of economic or civil collapse. Domestic tranquility, although desirable, is not that stuff of which epic Hollywood biopics are made.

Little enough can be said with certainty about what fate has in store for the Obama Era, except that it will inevitably lack this Clintonian calm. Obama takes the helm of the Ship of State in the eye of a Category 5 hurricane. Historically speaking, he will be juggling chainsaws from day one.
           
The partnership of Barack and Michelle already seems distinct from other First Families. Far from her predecessor’s tendency to open her mouth only so far to smile broadly for the cameras on cue, Michelle has already distinguished herself as being as outspoken and independent as a woman with her rather humble origins and her lofty accomplishments would have to be. Maintaining her professional duties as vice president for community and external affairs the University of Chicago Hospitals(1) while parenting and campaigning seems to me, nothing short of amazing. She seems the no-nonsense realist life-partner to whom a natural visionary and idealist tend to gravitate, gently reminding both her husband of his oversights and his overzealous boosters of Barack’s humanity, rolling her eyes, so to speak, when support begins to resemble sycophancy. After a White House which would seems to have suffered no dissent from any quarter, Michelle, I hope, will hold nothing back in her take on things. It speaks of Barack Obama’s confidence, and not her lack of loyalty, that his wife has no fear to call it as she sees it.

But we all know the Obamas. The American public has by now had ample time to scrutinize every facet of this very multifaceted family: Barack, the Statesman, Barack the Father, Barack the Author; Michelle the Mother, Michelle the Activist, Michelle the Lawyer. However, there has been one important role President-elect Obama has occupied, seldom spoken of, which I think has been an enormous contributing factor to his rise to power. This role, Barack the Teacher, was downplayed in the campaign, even though he has been a teacher for longer than he has been a senator. This was, understandably, out of a desire to avoid accusations of academic elitism, after the backlash from Obama’s somewhat condescending observation of we Pennsylvanians clinging in our bitterness to our firearms and our churches; this same sort of highbrow over-intellectual image that became so poisonous to both the Gore and Kerry campaigns.
           
Yet, the twelve years Barack Obama has spent in front of a classroom at the University of Chicago Law School(2) shows clearly in the President-elect’s public persona; this invaluable oratorical workshop and rhetorical proving ground. Recall the way Obama was able to phrase his condemnation of McCain’s record of deregulation-mania as the same free-for-all economic policy that led to the current recession. It was a charge framed in terms Americans from all walks of life could understand. Now imagine Gore making the same argument, droning on in a seemingly endless stream of multi-syllabic policy-wonk jargon, in that monotone Tennessee drawl that could make even the insights of sheer genius seem tedious. Perhaps it is because we are all compelled to the privilege of the attentions of our teachers that the profession ranks in sexiness somewhere between parking lot attendant and used office furniture salesman. Nevertheless, we all remember that teacher who reached out to us personally to pass something on to us that made us look up at the blackboard with an electrified wonder. Obama moved out in front of his party for many reasons: his broad and tireless mind, his genuine compassion, and his ability to transcend the partisan squabbles that clutter the chambers of our government at all levels. But Obama has prevailed where others have choked because of his well-honed power to startle that hung-over law student in the back of that Chicago classroom, the one about to drift off into the pillow of his notebook, to a state of sudden alertness... because of Obama’s ability to reach through the television to the real Joe Six-Pack with the contagious inspiration of a gifted teacher. 
           
My mind literally staggers, as I’m sure yours does, to contemplate the task before Barack. But I know well enough how the quality of one’s work can suffer when all is not right at home. We may, therefore, at this time, perhaps more easily mentally apprehend the job that stands before the First Lady-to-be, which is also immense; to be first among citizens standing behind this historic President. To be the one whose task it will be, among a great many other things, to support in person the man whom we all should support in spirit.
           
He must be the man I hope we deserve.

So, when the health insurance industry retaliates after he takes them in a firm hand (and he has to get even firmer)...
           
So, when representatives from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict bear down in diplomatic resentment against what someone in both camps will inevitably decry is a preferential bias towards the other side (and they well)...
           
And so, when the increasingly more invasive and cynical media finds the exploitable chink in the armor of the iconoclast celebrity-statesman (and they will)...
           
...May the Obamas continue to find the support from each other and from all of us to restore the as-yet un-restored America, to effect the change for which they have taught us to hope.

Footnotes:

1 Snow, Kate (January 24, 2008). "Michelle Obama: Mom First, Politics Second", ABC News.
 
2 University of Chicago Law School (2008-03-27). "Statement regarding Barack Obama". University of Chicago Law School. Retrieved on 2008-06-10. Miller, Joe (2008-03-28). "Was Barack Obama really a constitutional law professor?". FactCheck.org. Retrieved on 2008-06-10. Holan, Angie Drobnic (2008-03-07). "Obama's 20 years of experience". PolitiFact.com. Retrieved on 2008-06-10.