By Debbie Menon

It would seem that US President-elect, Barack Hussein Obama is becoming the man for all seasons.  His promise of hope is so non-committal and non-specific, that he is offering a pair of magic shoes which fit all feet... you can make of his premise whatever you wish.

It is like a plan for "the revolution," but someone has to step to the fore, turn the right way, and start the march.  It is going to be a long one, wherever it goes for America, and no one has really mentioned the destination as yet.

I do not think his new slogan "You can do it" will catch on.  Besides, he did not seem to have his heart into it when he mouthed the words.  They sounded too much like words which someone else had tried to put in his mouth.  I was a bit disappointed.  The Obama I have been watching all year did not seem like a man who would need slogans once safely in the driver's seat.

The candy Obama offers is like Forrest Gump's  Chocolate box of Whitman Samplers, there is a piece in there for everyone, but no one knows yet, exactly what they are going to get.  Yes, someone is going to have to hold his feet to the fire to get him moving but, with Rambo guarding his door, I wonder whether anyone will get into his office to do it!  Is the "fix" in?

Guards are guards, and they work both ways.  It is sometimes difficult to ascertain which side of the fence or the bars the protected or the imprisoned are actually on.  Read how H.R. Haldeman isolated and imprisoned Dick Nixon by chopping the legs off Rosemary Woods.  Rahmbo Emanuel has not been sent to circumflex Obama, he has been sent to emasculate him!

Unless Barack learns to "walk on water" pretty soon, I suspect there will be a lot of disappointed folks in the land.  He does not seem to have picked water walkers as aides and supporters, although the last one came from the original tribe.

True, setting up the Administration and organization of an operation as large as the United States government is not a ten week task, and any serious contender should have started doing so over a year ago.  Why then, do they wait until the last moment?  Lack of foresight?  Lack of confidence in their own campaign?  Surely it would be a test of their sincerity if they put the welfare of good government before petty political considerations?

An actual picture of the government and the men he planned on installing to run might even be of help to the candidate in drawing votes from the electorate.  On the other hand, it may also disclose entire areas of his agenda which he does not want the electorate to know about until after the election?

Yes, grave mistakes are inevitable when rushing through such a monumentious task in such a short time, and seated Executives are not the only ones who will suffer the entire duration of their administration for those early mistakes... but so too will their constituents, the people of the country!

It happens every four years: Presidents turn their campaign staffs into their transition staffs and then into their White House staffs.  But, Monday morning second selections are always an improvement over Saturday morning choices made before going into the game. Were not the "wrong" choices of JFK and others the correct ones who fit their programs at the time?  Who is to say what were the Presidential agenda behind the selections they made?  Like John Kennedy implied, it is difficult, or impossible, for the guy who got you elected to be the same guy with the qualifications to do the job for which you were elected. They are two different kinds of functions with two differing approaches to leadership.  One is all persuasive push, the other persuasive pull.  Leadership does not function from the rear.

John Foster Dulles's appointment as Eisenhower's Secretary of State is a case in point.  John foster Dulles and his brother Allen, director of the CIA, hatched the overthrow of  Mohammed Mossadegh in Persia and the installation of the Shah as an American puppet, of which we know all about from the Princess' book.   He, his law firm, and his younger brother Allen were instrumental in all of the doings of The United Fruit Company  in Honduras,  Columbia, Guatemala, Cuba, Central and South America, and were directly instrumental in establishing the fifty year embargo against Cuba which has bought about the current state of non-affairs between the US and Cuba, and bred such alliances as that with  Posada Carriles. Google Wikipedia for John and Allen Dulles, and the United Fruit Company for further depressing condemnation of "Great American Statesmen!"

Barack Obama will select advisors, Cabinet members and staff from one of two lists; the one he has been handed by AIPAC and the DNC, and the one he has created himself of men and women who will further his own and his personal friends interests.  There is probably little difference between the two, but where they conflict, you know which list will take precedence.  This we have already seen!

I am still skeptical about his first two choices, and if they were in fact his own choices.  If they were not, then I am disappointed in his failure to resist, take advantage of and use the power the people handed him that infamous night in the Chicago Park. If Obama chose them, and if Obama is straight, then he might have them under control, but if they were foisted on him, as I think they have been, we'll just have to wait 'n see, won't we?

The game is no longer "politics."  It is "Leadership" and we are lost in a deep and dark woods.  Time to stop looking pretty and talking, and to put on some boots and start walking!

If a revolution is going to be made, it will be an all-hands task, and not a simple one.  America did not get to where it is overnight, nor at the hands of one man!  It took many years to become the shipwreck which we see, and the cooperation of many people, both active and deliberate, and ignorant and passive was essential to its destruction. 

It's recovery will require the informed and active participation of all, and, if Obama is the man to lead, or start the process, his first and greatest challenge will be to keep the flame alive, for he has promised the poor, the deprived, the unemployed, the homeless and hopeless new shoes which fit all feet, and I wonder how  he will deliver! 

I am more concerned with Obama goals, agenda and directions than the degree of success with which he does it, or fails at it.

Is Barack Obama cool, calm and collected?  Or is he simply cold and calculating?  That we shall also see…

About the author: Debbie Menon is an independent writer based in Dubai. She can be reached at debbie.menon@yahoo.com.

... Payvand News - 11/11/08 ...

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