Now, the Backlash?

It took me a while to warm to Barack Obama. I hadn’t read either of his books and didn’t know enough about him to hail him as the Saviour of America and All That Is Beyond like everyone else around me.

The turning point came when I heard him talk about Iraq and Pakistan – not because his foreign policy resonated with me, but because he pronounced ‘Iraq’ correctly instead of calling it ‘eye-rak’ like Bush et. al. I know the reasoning is silly, but I *have* previously admitted that my political opinions are based mostly (if not entirely) on strange reasoning and irrelevant factors – my mantra during the US election was ‘McCain isn’t a leader. He has no neck!’.

Obama’s win was definitely surprising and inspiring to many people, but he’ll have to be something between a saint and a superhero to live up to the hype. If we know anything about the media, it is that they build people up because they love tearing them down so much.

Can Obama survive the backlash? Yes (he can). Can he really soothe the world’s ills? I doubt it, but I hope he has the strength and mettle to be a principled president. I hope he is sympathetic towards Palestine and diplomatic with Iran. I hope he makes things better. There’s no reason why he can’t. He does, after all, have an ample neck.