OK folks please. Let’s stop with the “He’s gonna be the best president ever.” talk. He’s never done anything notable except get elected and it is way too soon to start talk like that. Let’s look at some comparisons that make more sense.
Yes, Kennedy was the last senator to get elected, he was young, and he won because he had an impressive political machine behind him. He also came into office and immediately reversed part of a military decision of his predecessor while allowing the rest to proceed. It was a decision that cost many lives and arguably led to a foreign policy relationship in this hemisphere that has yet to be resolved. His legacy in foreign policy was not great, good, or even by many standards positive.
Kennedy was in a position to resolve Viet Nam but was waiting, for political reasons, till after he was re-elected. The end result is all too well known. His successor botched it horribly. Obama has a big chance to fail as a war time president. I’ll be watching to see what he does, but he has done nothing yet to suggest he is the man of destiny in these conflicts.
Roosevelt served the nation well and gave his health and in the end his life for her. Economically he changed our perception of ourselves but little else. America emerged as a world economic power after WW II mainly because it was the only major industrialized nation with an intact infrastructure. It’s easy to become a world leader when you don’t have any competition. But what has Obama done to draw a comparison with Roosevelt? Again, the only similarity is the circumstances of his election. He is coming into office when the nation is in an economic conundrum. There is nothing in Obama’s history that even slightly resembles Roosevelt.
The most far fetched comparison is Lincoln. Certainly you can say they both had ties to Illinois. They are both obscure politicians from an east coast perspective. Their physical build is similar. What Lincoln was able to do in his time in office was remarkable, but we have to see that in Obama and we haven’t seen any signs of it yet. If he is to keep the country together he had better start working on that now. I do see a resemblance of the division in ideology that Lincoln faced when he come into office, but that was not of his doing it was for him to recognize and overcome.
The only thing these three examples have in common was that they did not finish the term they were serving. Let’s hope that is not the similarity to this presidency. It is however strange that with all of the presidential examples these are the three that people latch onto. Perhaps they hope for the greatness others have demonstrated. Perhaps they have convinced themselves that there is more substance than is warranted. Whatever the cause they will in the end find that the one Obama is most likely to replicate is George W. Bush. Like Bush, it is likely that Obama will serve his nation in the way he feels is best, create great controversy, and be judged by history long after all of the voices we hear today are dust in the wind.
