I’m in love, and just in time for Valentine’s Day. (Yes, I know. Valentine’s Day isn’t a Jewish holiday. That’s for another column some time.) I am infatuated with Barack and Michelle Obama. I simply love the American first couple.
Don’t worry. This isn’t a crush or romantic love. And it’s not a rose-coloured- glasses, political kind of love. I’m not sure how Obama’s first 100 days as U.S. president will go. I’m not sure if all his appointments have been good ones. I certainly didn’t love Pastor Rick Warren’s evangelical invocation at the inauguration. His appropriating, triumphalist use of the Hebrew name of Jesus left me hopping mad and practically spoiled the whole inauguration for me.
I know that Obama faces a long, slogging road, and that he’s just a man.
What I am in love with is the idea of Obama, the image of Obama. I love that my kids are growing up with a real “American hero,” that other than rock stars and sports figures (often fallen sports figures, and questionably talented drug-using rock stars, unfortunately), today’s young people now have a politician they can actually look up to.
If you had asked any pre-teen kid last year for a list of their heroes, I doubt that any world leader, from any country at all, would have topped the list. (Can most 12-year-olds even name their MP, MPP, MLA or MNA? Their provincial premier? The prime minister even? Try Disney’s most recently invented rock group and you may do better.)
Recent scandals in the Israeli government revealed behaviour and attitudes that I certainly wouldn’t want my kids to emulate. Canadian politicians are slightly ahead in this area, I admit proudly. But mostly we roll our eyes or even laugh at the foibles of elected officials. Occasionally, we’re downright embarrassed by them.
And yes, I know Obama occasionally smokes. (Oy, Barack! Quit it already.) But what I see when I turn on the TV is an articulate, calm, dedicated leader with commitment, vision, open-mindedness, zeal, perseverance and a lovely family to whom he is loyal and caring, at least so far.
He seems to be an old-fashioned family man. He seems to really love and enjoy his family. I enjoy watching him with them. They seem downright wholesome. (Oy, Barack! Don’t make a mistake on this one. Don’t make me eat my words some day.)
Maybe I am naive, but I just don’t get how people in the public eye – teachers, politicians and rabbis, too – can ever consider any behaviour that would jeopardize the faith the public has put in them.
The mantle of leadership may be heavy, but you choose to wear it.
My guess is that Obama understands this better than many politicians who have come before him. My guess is that as the first black president, he feels that the world is watching, and waiting for a fatal misstep.
He feels the weight of that mantle, and he doesn’t dismiss it for a moment. So far.
OK, so far I’m in love.