Columns

Dreams From My New President

November 5, 2008

I'm guessing I'm not the only American who had trouble sleeping last weekend, but my worries didn't keep me from dreaming. Dreaming of our new president.

Night after night, waking, tossing, dreaming, waking, I had many dreams about President Obama. (There, I wrote it.) Some were strange, others laughable. But these are dreamlike times so I hope I'll be forgiven for letting dreams be my master.

I had a dream that President Obama met Martin Luther King. King told the president about writing his famous speech. And King said, "What you've just done, I didn't even dare to dream."

I had a dream that President Obama and his family were in the White House. Not doing anything special. Not making policy. Not even having dinner. They were just there. In the White House.

I had a dream that about a million black kids watched President Obama's inauguration speech and each nodded and said, "Then so can I."

I had a dream that honor, respect, intelligence, and fairness moved back into the White House and everything else moved back to Texas.

I had a dream of a long list of names that began with George and moved to John and Thomas and James, and later Martin and another James and on to Theodore and Calvin and John again, on up to Richard and George and finally another George. And then. . . . Barack. Waking, I said, "Now we've grown up."

I had a dream that President Obama met George Washington. And Washington told him about the slaves he owned and the slaves his friend Tom Jefferson owned. And he apologized. And President Obama accepted President Washington's apology and we grew up a little more.

I had a dream that I woke up and the last eight years had all been a bad dream. But then I really did wake up. "Well," I said, "at least our long, national nightmare is almost over."

I had a dream that I was standing in the White House in my underwear. These things happen in dreams. I don't think President Obama saw me.

I had a dream that there was a statue of George Bush somewhere. And we all gathered around it and some people climbed on it and it came crashing to the ground with a resounding thud. And we danced.

I had a dream that President Obama looked back over the last two years and said, "Never again." And the American people said the same. And they rose up and got Congress to pass new campaign laws. They banned paid TV political ads, gave presidential candidates free TV air time, shortened the primary season to three months, and established a Truth in Politics commission to vet every campaign claim. Then they mandated a single presidential ballot for every county and every state. And President Obama went on TV and announced, "My fellow Americans, the election process of the world's most powerful nation no longer resembles the election of a high school cheerleading squad."

I had a dream that I read President Obama's book, "Dreams From My Father." I'd put off reading it so I wouldn't be disappointed on Election Day but in my dream I read it and it was all everyone said it was and I couldn't believe we had a president who could write.

I had a dream that Americans of both parties looked at the deep troubles we've been left and gave President Obama the support they gave FDR in similar times. Sure, the greedheads might fight him but not the rest of us.

I had a dream that Barack Obama was President of the United States and after a few dreamlike months, that seemed as natural and right as democracy itself.

MY OWN PRIVATE BAILOUT

October 2008

I know the economy is bad. Wall Street is in the toilet. Enormous banks don't have a two nickels to throw to some third-rate lending institution in Phoenix. But frankly, I could use a bailout, too.

The last time I checked, my faith in America had been downgraded to the level of junk bonds. My portfolio of Hope Futures had tanked. My trust in my government not just to do the right thing but to do (ital)anything(close) had reached a low not seen since the Great Depression, an era when I was especially depressed because I did not exist. Yep, call me one of the Lehman Brothers, but I, too, need a call from the federal government. I need our government to bail out my faith in our government.

It all started with the bubble, and yes, I blame Bill Clinton. During his administration, I believed in America. Sure, there were the usual negative indicators - us still arming the world, still doing dirt in dark places, still dumbing down at home. But after a lifetime of downsized government and depressed hopes, I could be forgiven for believing in the America I'd learned about as a kid. The America that was respected, that cared about kids and families, that cleaned up its own messes and apologized for them.

Well, I don't have to tell you who happened. But it wasn't just him. He merely turned over the rock and let all the vermin out. Greedheads and zealots, war mongers and weapons experts, sleazeballs and spin artists, torturers and talk show hosts, patriots who pimp the term, ditzes who confuse dissent with disloyalty, jokers who just want to see the world burn. And some who were all of the above, but don't get me started on the vice president.

And it wasn't long before the government I believed in, that government of the people, by the people, etc., became a government of the greedy, by the tricky, for the wealthy. And all my prudent investments in America - my love of American history, my quadrennial efforts on behalf of losing candidates, my two endless years in the Peace Corps, my travels to almost every state - weren't worth the paper the once might dollar was printed on.

I did everything to keep my faith afloat. I leveraged my interest in old American heroes, pouring my patriotism into people like Jefferson and John Adams. I hedged my faith by funding citizen groups supporting the democratic process. I mortgaged my future by buying the promises of the newly Democratic Congress. And what happened?

My interest in old American heroes was devalued by new American villains. My hedged faith went belly up. And my mortgaged future proved about as wise as most mortgages these days. So I was left with a portfolio of empty words, words millions still seemed to be buying but were no longer fooling this customer.

Talk about bailouts always turns to "our children's futures." But my children could use help in the present. I've worked to pass on my faith in America. Days after the last presidential election, I took my kids to Washington, D.C. so they could see it was more than just one clown in the White House. We saw the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution. My faith was in recovery and so, I thought, was my children's.

But last week, my son had to write an essay on "What is an American?" He wrote that an American is "unlucky." Why? "Because we've done so much to be ashamed of." My stock answers plummeted.

So please, Uncle Sam. Bail me out. Do (ital)something(close) to show me that you can do something decent, something for the people and not the plutocrats, something for America, the country in which I've invested my whole life.