As it did in taking down Hillary Clinton and clenching the Democratic nomination, battling accusations of elitism and lack of patriotism from opponent John McCain bolstered by his rogue pastor Jeremiah Wright, and squashing White House security breaches, cool confidence has prevailed again.
There were so many times during the aformentioned trying incidents when I wanted Obama to employ ferocious tactics to fight for himself and an outcome that would change the trajectory of this country, but he always remained cool, calm and collected. When chaos seemed to abound on the surface — as it has with his health care mission — Obama’s cool confidence was the undetectable undercurrent and he’s proven again that it gets the job done.
President Obama has now managed to win enough support — even with the election of “game changer” Scott Brown — to get his landmark health care bill through the House. Though imperfect, it will solidify his place in history books — over and beyond the fact that he was the first black. Many broached the subject before him, but none BUT him had the savvy to bring it to pass. There are lessons to be learned from his approach.
The battle was heated from the start. Republicans dug in, political analysts and commentators declared it a dead issue, and tea partyers spewed vitriol and staged angry protests about it, but that last-minute surge needed to push his bill through seemed to come out of nowhere and silence every detractor — and he did it without once coming off as the “angry black man.”
Whatever is driving our charismatic president, who seems to carry the weight of the world like it’s just a feather, must be something powerful, as it seems to work every time. When confronted with ostensibly insurmountable obstacles he calmly glides right through them. Now, at long last, that cool confidence has ensured that the U.S. will no longer be the outlier among wealthy nations in leaving so many without basic health coverage.
Hail to the chief. –gerald radford
