Tamping Down the Expectations

“You know, I actually believe my own bull***,” Obama has been quoted as saying.  And in 2007 and 2008, oh, what incredible aural fertilizer emerged from the beam-splitting glass of his teleprompters:

“We’re going to keep on praising together. I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth.”

* * *

I am going to try to be so persuasive in the 20 minutes or so that I speak that by the time this is over, a light will shine down from somewhere.

It will light upon you. You will experience an epiphany. And you will say to yourself, I have to vote for Barack. I have to do it.

* * *

“This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

And his wife didn’t help matters:

We have lost the understanding that in a democracy, we have a mutual obligation to one another — that we cannot measure the greatness of our society by the strongest and richest of us, but we have to measure our greatness by the least of these. That we have to compromise and sacrifice for one another in order to get things done. That is why I am here, because Barack Obama is the only person in this who understands that. That before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation.

These days though, the Obama-expectations are just slightly lower:

“Every once in a while, I do things right.”

But does he? If there is no Truth with a Capital-T, if it’s all relative based on the random happenstance of time, geography, and opinion, how can we define what “right” is?

And beyond that, as Orrin Judd writes, “And who doesn’t enjoy self-pity in a leader?”