Decent will do

I heard Obama before I ever saw him. It was 2007 and I was getting dressed while half listening to Fareed Zakarias’ interview on CNN. Suddenly something caught my ear. A clear compelling voice talking in simple terms about the things I cared most. I was intrigued enough to turn away from the mirror and look at the screen and came face to face with Barak Hussein Obama, a graceful and lithe young black man, a name I had never heard before.

The year after that he became America’s 44th President and the first African-American man sworn into Office. And the rest, as they say, is history. Obama turned out to be more than just a great orator; as opposed to his successor he can, at every occasion, speak in full sentences.

In the course of my life I have witnessed only one other American President enthrall crowds with the God-gift talent of sweeping oratory. That man, John F. Kennedy, had only a brief life and a briefer stint as President but his voice still echoes long after he was shot and killed. “Ich bin ein Berliner” where he bonded with all citizens of Berlin -they never forgot him- and the iconic challenge he handed the American people when he famously said “Do not ask what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” creating a swelling momentum among the young that crested in a wish to serve.

Obama was a caring leader, open to dialogue, who kept in mind that his opponent’s view will always hold at least a modicum of truth; but more than that he turned out to be a decent guy. At first this may not seem like much, but it is hard to stay decent when you wield such power. The temptation to bully, to crush the opponent, to put the blame on someone else, to deny rights, to use the Office for your own benefit, to cronyism and nepotism is strong. So strong that the sitting President has done all that since he arrived to the White House to the applause of those who mistake these actions for greatness.

Obama went and gave another memorable speech at the Democratic Convention this week, probably the best of his life. He told us he never believed Trump would embrace his vision but he did hope “that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously…. that he might come to feel the weight of the Office. In the last 4 years he has shown no interest in putting in the work, no interest in using the awesome power of the Office for anyone except for him and his friends. Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t and the consequences of that are severe”.

We knew that Trump mocks heroes, disrespects the fallen, makes fun of those afflicted with a handicap, belittles women and uses vulgar talk when describing them; we knew he is not a decent guy. The bad news is that you do not want him covering you back in the trenches; he’s a far cry from 25-year-old JFK risking his life to save his men during WWII.

In Joe Biden Obama is handing an alternative. A man who worked alongside him for 8 years and lives by the ethics his parents taught him: “Nobody’s better than you, Joe, but then you are no better than anyone”. No Trumpism there.

Trump never fails to remind us that “I am rich, the smartest guy in the room, have the highest IQ and my Presidency is the best in history”.

Well.

He has no plan to end the pandemic. He started by flat out denying it. Now he’s changed his tune. “One day it will just disappear. Puff! Like a miracle”.

Oh well.

He does not care for the friends of America or cultivate allies; his cronies are the worst thugs in the class.

He’s not as rich as he claims; Michael Bloomberg, who is seriously wealthy, put that to rest.

He has no clue on how to fix the economy, supposedly his forté

And yes, he is not a decent guy.