Remember when Obama's "great speaking abilities" were the gleam in the media's eye?
Obama is either the end or the beginning. Running for President and being President are two different things and this presidency shows perhaps the greatest gulf between the two ever. For all of GWB LLCs "compassionate conservatism" morphing into "I really don't give a fuck conservatism" sometime around January 2001, that doesn't really compare to the "second coming of Che Guevara"-style imagery of Obama's campaign (HOPE - CHANGE - WHOLE FOODS) and the caution that has followed. I have issues with pragmatism as a day-to-day way of living. To conflate the way things are with what is natural and then make choices within that very limited context, to not take any risks or dare to imagine profound change, has always struck me as a bit irresponsible, even if the goal of pragmatism itself is responsibility. But I digress. It is one thing to want all the facts to be in before making a decision, quite another to act as if one could not know something about a situation at all before beginning the collection of evidence, to not only ignore instinct, experience, whatever, but to actually pretend that it doesn't exist. Ideology and idea sound more similar than they are. But I am still digressing. Will Obama herald a new age of people so well trained to become President that they can't be one? Or will people look for something else?
My pragmatic answer is that so few people truly feel that this disconnect exists that, well, neither. ;-)
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