OBAMANOMICS- The New Style

You read it here first, folks...I plan to coin the phrase "Obamanomics" and get it into the regular flow of things before some kind of dried up old politico-type potato beats it into repetitious uselessness. If that's already in the circulation of things, let's go for "Barackonomics" or "EconObamics."

Watching last Tuesday's inauguration was a moving thing to see. People of my generation haven't had a whole lot to get excited about politically. We were born in the Regan era, and have only been able to vote in "Dubya" related elections. If you were a person of my generation in Illinois, you had even less to be interested in- obviously, our governor is not the most charismatic guy around at the moment, and he won two elections (but as of yesterday is now "in the private sector"- i.e. just a reg'lar ol shmuck stopping by Dunkin' Donuts this blessed Friday morning.)

But watching all those millions of people out there in the cold in DC, and seeing the Obamas poised to shake things up a bit, my gut was nervous. Don't get me wrong- I think he's the best man for the job by far. Even friends of mine who are fairly staunchly anti-government in general can get excited about him. In fact, about the only bit of election business I had ever gotten even remotely psyched about prior to this presidential bid was Obama's run for the senate.

So what's makin' me nervous? I'm afraid the flea-like attention spans and unrealistic expectations of the American public might not give him a fair shake.

Perhaps my first inkling while watching the inauguration came when Obama and fam were happily waving to the cheering throngs. In a voice over, a round table of fairly typical political nay-sayers and fact checkers were discussing what was happening. Anyone who's ever seen a live news broadcast of just about anything knows that this tends to be a mostly opinionated and dull affair- "Well... we're...we're getting a closer view now. Yes! Yes... the same nothing is happening that was happening five seconds ago when we got in for a closer view."

Suddenly, as Obama walks behind his car waving to a cheering public, one of the political voice over people pipes in: "Well, this honeymoon period isn't going to last forever. He has to get to business" and another "I have to wonder what that swearing in flub will cost him."

It was like listening to golf commentary. He had been president, officially, for all of two hours, and there were already people giving him shit.

But- with the sheer suffocating amount of media coverage involved in the process (and...really every process of note nowadays)people are bound to be disappointed. When the entire world knows what kind of underwear you prefer or what your kid got on their spelling test, you're bound to disappoint someone... "Oooh... that'll cost him. 9 out of 10 polls show that he really should have ordered the soup. Muffin is no good. That'll come back to haunt him- the religious right HATE people who eat muffins."

I for one am glad to have an intelligent, well spoken president I can actually root for. So give him five minutes alone to comfortably shit so he can think properly.

After all- everything is roundly and explicitly fucked at the moment. Perhaps not as much so as your average 10 'o clock newscast would have you believe, but still fucked without question. As a matter of fact, things have been fucked for a long time now, it's just that the pud-pullers and pundits are only now getting around to acknowledging it. Let's hope they don't pin it all squarely on O'bomb. He walked into this stew, after all. The cooks were entirely different folks.

We should all relax: Bush is back home, one of these days he'll settle back in and buy himself a football team to fiddle around with, and all will be right with the world. Something tells me the book tour/motivational speaking Clinton move isn't gonna fly with this one.