Obama Will Triumph...So Will America (by Frank Schaeffer)

Frank Schaeffer is a New York Times best selling author. Obama Will Triumph -- So Will America By Frank Schaeffer Before he'd  served even one year President  Obama lost the support  of the easily distracted left and engendered the  white hot rage of  the hate-filled right. But some of us, from all walks of  life and  ideological backgrounds -- including this white, straight,  57-year- old, former religious right wing agitator, now progressive writer   and (given my background as the son of a famous evangelical leader)  this  unlikely Obama supporter -- are sticking with our President. Why?--  because he is succeeding. We faithful Obama supporters still trust  our initial impression of  him as a great, good and uniquely qualified man  to lead us. Obama's steady supporters will be proved right.  Obama's critics  will be remembered as easily panicked and prematurely  discouraged at best and shriveled hate mongers at worst. The Context of the Obama  Presidency Not since the days of the rise of fascism in  Europe , the Second World War and the Depression has any president faced  more adversity. Not since the Civil War has any president led a more bitterly divided country. Not since the introduction of racial integration  has any president faced a more consistently short-sighted and willfully  ignorant opposition - from both  the right and left. As the President's poll numbers have fallen so  h as his support from some on the left that were hailing him as a Messiah  not long ago;  all those lefty websites and commentators that were falling  all  over themselves on behalf of our first black president during the  2008  election. The left's lack of faith has become a self-fulfilling  "prophecy"--  snipe at the President and then watch the poll numbers fall  and  then pretend you didn't have  anything to do with it! Here is  what Obama faced when he took office-- none of which was  his  fault: # An ideologically divided country to the point that  America was  really two countries # Two wars; one that was  mishandled from the start, the other that  was unnecessary and  immoral # The worst economic crisis since the depression #  America 's standing in the world at the lowest point in history # A  country that had been misled into accepting the use of torture  of  prisoners of war # A health care system in free fall # An  educational system in free fall # A global environmental crisis of  history-altering proportions (about which the Bush administration and the  Republicans had done nothing) # An impasse between culture warriors  from the right and left # A huge financial deficit inherited from  the terminally irresponsible Bush administration. And those were  only some of the problems sitting  on the President's desk! "Help"  from the Right? What did the Republicans and the religious  right, libertarians and  half-baked conspiracy theorists -- that is what  the Republicans  were reduced to by th e time Obama took office -- do to  "help" our  new president (and our country) succeed? They claimed that he wasn't a real American, didn't have an American birth certificate,  wasn't  born here, was secretly a Muslim, was white-hating "racist",  was secretly  a communist, was actually the Anti-Christ, (!) and was  a reincarnation of  Hitler and wanted "death panels" to kill the elderly! They  not-so-subtly called for his assassination through the not-so- subtle use  of vile signs held at their rallies and even a bumper  sticker quoting  Psalm 109:8. They organized "tea parties" to sound  off against imagined  insults and all government in general and  gathered to howl at the moon.  They were led by insurance industry  lobbyists and deranged (but well  financed) "commentators" from Glenn Beck to Rush Limbaugh. The  utterly discredited Roman Catholic bishops teamed up with the  utterly  discredited evangelical leaders to denounce a president who was trying to  actually do something about the poor, the environment, to diminish the  number of abortions through compassionate programs to help women and to  care for the sick! And in Congress the Republican leadership only knew one  word: "No!" (Sounding, always like the defiant two-year olds!) In other words the reactionary white, rube, uneducated, crazy American far right, combined with the educated but obtuse neoconservative war mongers, religious right shills for big business,  libertarian Fed Reserve-hating gold bug, gun-loving crazies,  child-molesting acquiescent "bishops", frontier loons and evangelical  gay-hating flakes found one thing to briefly unite them: their desire to stop an uppity black man from  succeeding at all costs! "Help" from the Left? What did the  left do to help their newly elected president? Some of  them excoriated the  President because they disagreed with the bad choices he was being forced  to make regarding a war in Afghanistan  that he'd inherited from the worst president in  modern history! Others stood up and bravely proclaimed that  the President's economic policies had "failed" before the President even instituted  them! Others said that since all gay rights battles had not been fully won  within virtually minutes of the President taking office,  they'd been  "betrayed"! (Never mind that Obama's vocal support to the gay community is stronger than any other president's has been.  Never mind that he signed a  new hate crimes law!) Those that had stood in transfixed legions  weeping with beatific  emotion on election night turned into an angry mob  saying how  "disappointed" they were that they'd not all immediately been  translated to heaven the moment Obama stepped into the White House!  Where  was the "change"? Contrary to their expectations they were  still mere  mortals! And the legion of young new supporters was too busy  texting to pay  attention for longer than a nanosecond. "Governing"?! What  the hell  does that word, uh, like mean?" The President's critics  left and right all had one thing in common:  impatience laced with  little-to-no sense of history (let alone reality) thrown in for good  measure. Then of course there were the  white, snide know-it-all  commentators/talking heads who just couldn't imagine that maybe, just maybe they weren't as smart as they  thought they were and certainly not as smart as their  president. He hadn't consulted them, had he? So he must be wrong! The Obama critics'  ideological ideas defined their idea of reality rather than reality  defining their ideas-say, about what is  possible in one year in office after the hand that the  President  had been dealt by fate, or to be exact by the American idiot  nation that voted Bush into offic twice! Meanwhile back in the reality-based community -  in just 12 short  months -- President Obama: #Continued to  draw down the misbegotten war in Iraq (But that wasn't good enough for  his critics) #Thoughtfully and decisively picked the best of  several bad choices  regarding the war in Afghanistan (But that wasn't  good enough for his critics) #Gave a major precedent-setting speech  supporting gay rights (But that wasn't good enough for his  critics) #Restored America 's image around the globe (But that  wasn't good enough for his critics) #Banned torture of American  prisoners (But that wasn't good enough for his critics) #Stopped the free fall of the American economy (But that wasn't  good enough for his critics) #Put the USA squarely back in the  bilateral international community (But that wasn't good enough for his  critics) #Put the USA squarely into the middle of the  international effort  to halt global warming (But that wasn't good  enough for his critics) #Stood up for educational reform (But  that wasn't good enough for his critics) #Won a Nobel peace  prize (But that wasn't good enough for his critics) #Moved the  trial of terrorists back into the American judicial system of checks and  balances (But that wasn't good enough for his critics) #Did  what had to be done to start the slow, torturous and almost  impossible  process of health care reform that 7 presidents had  failed to even  begin (because the wealthy abhor taking care of anyone than themselves....it's always all about them!) (But that wasn't good enough for his critics) #Responded  to hatred from the right and left with measured good  humor and  patience (But that wasn't good enough for his critics) #Stopped  the free fall of job losses (But that wasn't good enough for his  critics) #Showed immense personal courage in the face of an armed  and  dangerous far right opposition that included th e sort of disgusting   people that show up at public meetings carrying loaded weapons and  carrying Timothy McVeigh-inspired signs about the "blood of  tyrants"  needing to "water the tree of liberty". (But that wasn't good enough  for his critics) #Showed that he could not only make the tough  military choices but  explain and defend them brilliantly (But that  wasn't good enough for his critics) Other than those  "disappointing" accomplishments -- IN ONE YEAR --  President Obama  "failed"! Other than that he didn't "live up to  expectations"! Who actually has  failed... ...are the Americans that can't see the beginning  of a miracle of  national rebirth right under their jaded noses. Who failed  are the  smart ass ideologues of the left and right who began rooting for this President to fail so that they could  be proved right in their  dire and morbid predictions. Who failed  are the movers and shakers  behind our obscenely dumb news cycles that have  turned "news" into  just more stupid entertainment for an  entertainment-besotted  infantile country. Here's the good news:  President Obama is succeeding without the  help of his lefty "supporters"  or hate-filled Republican  detractors! The Future Looks  Good! After Obama has served two full terms, (and he will),  after his wisdom in moving deliberately and cautiously with great subtlety  on  all fronts -- with a canny and calculating eye to the possible   succeeds, (it will), after the economy is booming and new industries  are  burgeoning, (they will be), after the doom sayers are all proved  not just  wrong but silly: let the record show that not all  Americans were panicked  into thinking the sky was falling. Just because we didn't get  everything we wanted in the first short  and fraught year Obama was in  office not all of us gave up. Some of  us stayed the course. And we will be proved right.