In the more than 2,300 days he’s been president of the United States, the sun and wind powering Barack Obama’s tall, clipper ship have more than once been interfered with, as nuts and overly partisan ideologues have disrespected the office of the president in their vain attempts at besmirching the personal integrity and reputation of the man himself.
Thus, when Rep. Joe Wilson, (R-South Carolina), a tea party favorite, shouted, “You lie!” at the president during Obama’s September 2009 speech to a joint session of Congress regarding a national healthcare program, it was a feat previously unheard of in congressional history. During the last presidential debates, Mitt Romney inferred that Obama was not worthy to be president, and instead had simply been a seat warmer for a real (White) man to show up and retake the POTUS post. Current Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell infamously said that the only real business of the Republican Party after the 2008 elections was to make sure Obama was a one-term president (which did not turn out well for them). And in 2015, in the most egregious action thus far, 47 U.S. senators signed a letter sent to Iran’s leaders saying the U.S. president’s word in nuclear negotiations was not worth much, and any agreement reached based on it would be rescinded right after the next presidential election. Many people still think each of those senators should have been arrested and indicted based on violating the Logan Act for treason, but the president kept his cool and stayed on his agenda.
This week, McConnell, of all people, sided with the president in advocating a new Pacific Partnership trading pact, and urged his Republican and Democratic Party colleagues to follow the president’s lead on the issue. Will wonders never cease?
More noticeable, perhaps was the president’s achievement of another milestone this week—becoming only the fourth POTUS to visit all 50 states—joining former presidents Nixon, Clinton and George H.W. Bush. This was very big symbolically, because President Obama has repeatedly said he was elected to represent all Americans, not just some.
The occasion was instigated by an 11-year old girl’s letter to the POTUS that he hadn’t visited South Dakota during his terms of office, and that dismayed her. Even though South Dakota is very red, and had voted against Obama numerous times (during the 2008 democratic primary, which went to Hillary Clinton, and both presidential elections), the president and his aides decided that correcting that omission was important, so they arranged a graduation commencement speech at Lake Area Technical Institute Community College in Watertown, S.D., for this month.
The town and the state “put on the dog” for the visit, arranging a town parade, TV viewing parties, lawn watchers offering “free lemonade” to members of the presidential party and a very large crowd of on-lookers and well-wishers at the town’s small airport (the president had to use a smaller, auxiliary Air Force One plane in order to land). Indeed, to South Dakotans, this visit was a very, very big deal. The town and the state had not hosted a sitting president’s visit before, and this was a heady time.
The POTUS even got a chance to hug, shake hands with and congratulate the 11-year old letter writer, Rebecca Kelley, at the airport, and the young girl reportedly thought she had died and gone to heaven. Obama’s brown face was never an issue in this South Dakota visit. That the president was in their town and their state was all important. When the president mentioned some townspeople by name in his commencement speech, he even got some positive changing of minds on his performance as president and probably some more votes too, even though it was too late for that now.
The point is, here was a case in which the office of the president was clearly much, much more important than any personal animus against the current office holder because of race. Too bad, a greater number of our elected congresspersons still don’t get that.
Always respect the position, if not the person. This is a lesson even the young can teach well, apparently, and old heads need to learn.
Professor David L. Horne is founder and executive director of PAPPEI, the Pan African Public Policy and Ethical Institute, which is a new 501(c)(3) pending community-based organization or non-governmental organization (NGO). It is the stepparent organization for the California Black Think Tank which still operates and which meets every fourth Friday.
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