A President Like Caroline's Father

This is still valid (as of 24 Jan. 2011).  I've stuck with our President through thick and thin.  I don't like everything, particularly the transparency that is less than we had hoped for and the assertion to continue certain questionable executive branch powers (although he did stop the actual torture).  But I still have "HOPE"


A President Like Caroline's Father  September 2, 2009 at 7:28pm

This is another in a series of rejected submissions to the Salt Lake Tribune. I wrote this within a week or so of deciding I would support Obama in the Democratic Primary (my first choice, the recently vindicated Gov. Richardson of NM having dropped out.) It seems very appropriate now in anticipation of President Obama's upcoming address to the nation's schoolchildren to encourage hard work in school. Several on the right fringe are urging that people take their children out of school that day because the President's speech is somehow an attempt to "grab" them and indoctrinate them into the President's evil socialist agenda.

Anyway. Here's my piece:

A President Like Caroline's Father

I was moved by Caroline Kennedy's op-ed piece published in the New York Times on January 27,[2008] in which she said that for the first time she could vote for someone to be president who inspired her in the way people tell her that her father inspired them.

Caroline was born the same year I was. My first historical memories are of the tragic assassination of her father. I was sitting in Mrs. Verd's first-grade class at Thoreau Elementary in Kirkland, Washington. As a six-year-old, I didn't know anything about Kennedy's politics or policies (except that we were going to the moon). I didn't know anything about any personal flaws. I didn't even know that my parents hadn't voted for him and that my grandparents apparently had disturbing prejudices against his religion and background. All I knew was that our President had been shot. There were tears in Mrs. Verd's eyes as she led us out to pledge allegiance to the flag that was lowered to half-mast before we were dismissed from school for the day. As a memorial, we contributed nickels and pennies to buy a portrait of President Kennedy to hang in our school.

I have a two-year-old grandson who will likely be in first grade in the third year of the next President's term. It would be so terrible if he had to experience a tragic assassination like I did. But it would be wonderful if he could have the kind of respect for the President like we shared at Thoreau Elementary. The divisive politics of the past few decades from the turmoil of the 60's through the maligning of conservatives and liberals to the manipulative division of the country into red and blue states has tended not to give us presidents who inspire us beyond the politics of partisanship.

Barack Obama is not a flawless human nor does he promote policies that will solve all the problems of this nation or the world. Yet he does appear to have a quality to inspire and lead us towards a better place than we have been. For the first time I feel like I can vote for someone with whom I share the dream of becoming a better nation and a better people instead of choosing the least objectionable of bad political choices.

Yes, this is idealistic. Yes, this requires belief in ourselves and a greater cause – that we can actually do it together. And that is the best thing we can hope for. I also want a President like Caroline's father.