The more fanatical Obama supporters are critical of his critics – unsurprising when you look at the number of T-shirts they own emblazoned with his handsome, smiling face. “Do you even know what he is dealing with”, “do you think that when you become president, you know everything” – these seem to be relatively common refrains.
My response to this is – do YOU know what being president means? I think we all know what it entails, but let me use an analogy to make my sentiments clear. When you look at say, a hedge fund that fails, and the investors lose millions on their investments, is your immediate reaction, oh dear, the manager had so much on his plate, give him a break. Of course not. You go into a screaming, yelling rage about how financial managers are bloodsucking and irresponsible pigs getting fat while cheating out the public. But consider the relationship. The investor has entrusted his money, his lifeblood, to this manager, just as we have implicitly entrusted Mr. Obama with the livelihoods of approximately 310 million Americans. I would argue that Mr. Obama should be the brunt of more criticism, not less, because of the burden he has chosen to undertake. You may argue that he is simply the face of the machine, but you must also understand that running for president means that you understand that you are the one to blame if something goes wrong. That, my friends, is the definition of being The Face.
If Mr. Obama is to be entrusted with the future of the country, he must be able to look at the opinion polls and understand that it is the manifest representation of what he has accomplished, or more profoundly, what he has failed to accomplish. For that to be true, there should be no cutting of slack – presidency is a job, not a privilege, and in even the simplest jobs you must be held accountable for what you have taken responsibility for.
