Today, Tuesday 20 January 2009, Barack Obama will be sworn in as the forty-fourth President of the United States. Forty-Two men have held this office previously; Grover Cleveland being the twenty-second and twenty-fourth President as he served two non consecutive terms. Only two presidents since Washington have taken office with such a daunting challenge facing them; Lincoln had to deal with the Southern states breaking up the Union and FDR with the Great Depression. Obama carries with him extraordinarily high levels of expectation where he to meet those hopes then at the end of his office he would deserve to be mentioned again in the same breath as Lincoln and FDR. My heart wishes for that outcome, my head tells me it is unlikely.
The chance of Obama succeeding in lifting the US and the world from its economic, ecological, and political difficulties is made far harder by the opposition seeing their role as criticism of the man even before he takes office. I am not suggesting that the Republican Party should support the new President blindly; the supine support offered to Bush by the Democrats in the aftermath of 9/11 added to the problems that we all face. I do wish that opposition is focused on the substance of policy and preferably with suggested improvement. I fear that what we will get is more name calling, veiled hints of disloyalty, and knee-jerk opposition to anything that the President suggests. It is, sadly, too much to hope that the modern Republican party can put Country before party.
