Diana West wrote something very wise today:
"As [Obama] now heads to the White House, it's crucial that he finally be regarded as a politician, not a messiah, and as a man, not a moral judgment. Otherwise, the cultural juggernaut he seems likely to unleash will be unstoppable."
Exactly. I've been worried about this same thing the last couple of days, but couldn't quite put it into words. A number of things triggered my worries: the shining, exalted faces at Obama's victory rally Tuesday night; all the talk I've been hearing on TV and in print about how we all ought to be deliriously happy and glorified that a black man has ascended to the presidency; a radio commercial I heard the other day, urging us to buy something (I forget what it was) because now with a new president it's an "exciting time" full of "new possibilities"; etc etc etc.
It's not just that I think people are placing too much hope and too-high expectations on a man and on government; it's that I worry that people are going to see this president as so important and so exalted that they're going to see criticism of him and his policies, in and of itself, as unpatriotic and wrong. That's a dangerous place to be. (and we haven't even touched on the fact that others will undoubtedly begin claiming that criticism of Obama is in and of itself racist.)
I'm sure I'll expand on these preliminary thoughts in the weeks to come.
