Welcome, my clearly human President

I want to start off by saying that I adore President Obama.

Frankly, I greatly respect him for all of the hard work he's putting into making sure things aren't screwy. No double standards for the people in power. We are all US citizens, and Obama gets that. It's wonderful. I am quite happy that he acts like a normal person, and takes responsibility when he messes up.

I, however, don't think he messed up. Yeah, he should have done some more background checks into his Cabinet members, but it hasn't caused any problems, and he doesn't condone the tax evasion on the part of Daschle nor Killefer. Things didn't get out of hand. There were no detrimental issues caused by the fact that these two people were being considered for Cabinet.

I think what I love most about Obama, especially in light of this situation, is his ability to seem incredibly down-to-earth. According to BBC News, Obama said "I think I screwed up. And, you know, I take responsibility for it and we're going to make sure we fix it so it doesn't happen again."

He doesn't merely say "Yeah I made a mistake," just to make people happy and then brush it off.

It's incredibly important to look at exactly how he talks about this issue. He thinks he screwed up. This shows a sort of humility - he isn't trying to jerk us around, isn't trying to use his position to treat the situation as something unimportant.

I am hesitant to say that this phrasing is slightly insecure, as that makes him seem 'weak' (which I also think is stupid - people need to be able to have some sort of fallibility, or we'll end up with another President Bush, Sent From God). However, this phrasing does say to me that he realizes he isn't the Alpha and the Omega. He realizes that he is just a man, and can screw up unintentionally without having to be brassed off about it.

I'm sure part of this is my bias, since I really do like the man, but he really is turning out to be as good a guy as he presented himself during the campaign. I, for one, am impressed.


In other news, let's not tell the world that we only care about ourselves. Another good show for Obama. I approve.

Check ya,
ALQ