In Obama’s 2004 Democratic Convention Speech Obama said:
"Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight,
there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America."
One of the great frustrations of Obama's presidency has been the toxic relations between Capitol Hill and the White House. In his last State of the Union message he said:
"It's one of the few regrets of my presidency, that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better."
Given Obama's low rating of support by the American public he could have pointed In his speech to the systematic blocking of his initiatives by the Republicans who literally sabotaged his presidency from the very first day. Instead he regretted that he had not done more to change his country's broken political system. Someone with the political "gifts" of Lincoln or FDR might have been able to do so, he said, but not him. Thus the president took responsibility for the blood feud that has come to define American politics, as if it were actually his fault. Humbleness, ethics, respect, a high sense of responsibility and his belief in the virtues of bipartisanship did not allow him, without compromising his values, to blame his opponents.
Indeed calling for a different kind of political dialogue was one of the central themes of his last State of the Union speech. He called for a more tolerant, open and respectful political discourse.
If John F. Kennedy was an "idealist without illusion”, how will historians judge Barack Hussein Obama ? The man and the President.
