<snip>
"Obama speaks and emotes on par with some of this country's, even this world's, most gifted orators. For this, I am grateful. It feels amazing to shed some genuine tears over a political speech, to have some sense of what my parents meant when they talked about being personally invested in JFK's ideas, to actually believe in someone who has a flag waving behind them. When Obama smiles, it's as if a long-dimmed light has been fiercely illuminated.
But there is a danger in all this charisma. It distracts us from the reality, which is that Obama is a young politician, full of potential but also destined to make mistakes. He is human and, therefore, bound to fail at some of what he is so bravely setting out to do. We, a generation pumped full of self-esteem education, are uncomfortable with failure. Too often we want our mentors, our parents, and, I fear, our political leaders, airbrushed into perfection. Or on the other extreme, we revel in the demise of decent people. Reality television has primed us for 24-hour schadenfreude.
Let's not let Obama be our deity or our Britney Spears. Let's not hold him up to unrealistic standards, setting ourselves up for inevitable disillusion. And let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater when he shows his weaknesses. The loss is far too great to have an all-or-nothing attitude toward the man who would be king. It's not just his presidency that is in danger but our own sustainable civic involvement.
<snip>
A critical lens, not rose-colored glasses, will best serve us in the coming months of this presidential campaign. If we see Obama as a star, then we will be forced to watch him fall from such great heights and experience the darkness afterward. If we see him as a promising leader -- full of wisdom, charisma, and vulnerable humanity -- then we can walk the long, bumpy road ahead. As Biko Baker puts it, "As young progressives we really just need Obama to be accountable to us most of the time and the rest of time it's going to be up to us to push back and fight with him. Let's be honest, it's going to be our vote that gets him in the office.""http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=obama_is_not_a_god
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