Obama, the Disappointment

Henceforth, March 4th is a day that shall live in infamy. I have always respected Barack Obama, ever since he burst into the national spotlight, literally, on the stage of the Democratic National Convention in Boston. I esteemed him for his judgment on the Iraq war and admired his courage to speak out against the war when America was at its peak national hysteria.

While emasculated media organizations and frightened, disheveled Democrats tried to out-Rove Karl, Obama said, “I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income – to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.”

Yes, on October 2nd, 2002, a mere nine days before 77 senators committed our nation to a fight on the other side of the world against a secular dictatorship, hated by and itself at war with Islamists, a dictatorship with no connections to the September 11 attacks or AlQaeda, Obama said, “I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.”

Yes, even then I loved Barack Obama. More recently I am inspired by his talk of hope. I am heartened by his high-mindedness even amid the vitriol being unleashed by the Clinton campaign. I am moved by his quiet anger at Clinton’s mud-slinging style of politics.

And until last night, I felt that Obama was graced by God, himself. I admit it. Perhaps it is because the problems we face are so monumental and overwhelming. Because the injustice that we are provoking and incurring is so damning that we need a Moses, a Mohammed, a Jesus or a Buddha to extricate ourselves from burning Baghdad, bondaged Palestine, bottomless deficits, Chinese lenders, stagflation, overcrowded prisons and crumbling America. Obama spoke to us in the language of kindness. He preached hope and unity. He extolled African Americans in the Ebenezer Baptist Church, a shrine of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, for tolerating homophobia and anti-Semitism. He is a product of Christianity and Islam, of whites and blacks, of Old World and New World, he is God’s gift to a tried and tired nation.

That is, until March 4th when he lost Texas, Rhode Island and Ohio to a mere mortal and not a magnanimous one at that. It was easy to forgive him his early losses: he was an unknown battling against the heir to the throne. He was David battling Goliath and a redeemed Ishmael under Abraham’s knife. He was the disparate Arab Armies of Mecca that defeated the Persians and the Romans. He was the American pilgrims who won the revolutionary war against all odds. Yes, his wins in Iowa and Super Tuesday were miraculous, nothing short of divine intervention. Obama’s win was simply a matter of people acquainting themselves with him and falling under his baraka, blessings in Arabic.

On March 4th, Obama broke my heart. I thought of him as I thought of myself once; if someone got to know me and what I was about, he would not turn away. I was wrong on both accounts. Like a jilted lover I saw the illusion of destiny vaporized before my eyes.

I wanted so badly to believe and so I did but I forgot that I am not a believer but naturally a skeptic. I don’t believe in the prophets before Obama and I don’t believe in his prophecy. And so I will still support him, not as a Godsend but as the human that he is. He gets my vote because he understands that the war in Iraq is why our economy is on its knees, our health is poor and our infrastructure is crumbling. He gets my vote because in a field of presidential contenders whose byline reads “complicit in Bush’s war,” his reads, “I don’t oppose all Wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war.”