Why I'll miss Barrack Obama

[Calllaris]

This isn't about the man Donald Trump, or the many controversies surrounding his 'policies' against The LGBT community and other minority groups. Nor is it anymore about feminist rues over Hillary Clinton not winning the last election ..

 

This piece is about the man Barrack Hussein Obama and his wife Michell Obama...Barrack Obama the POTUS who could unarguably win the best President ever of the USA - if there was such a poll. His integrity, leadership grace and personal values are simply uncommon.

 

I'd miss him, we all would miss Barrack Obama. Can you see all those feats? Sometimes, I feel Trump is intimidated by Obama’s accomplishments, knowing he wouldn’t be able to fill up the shoes. Not that any one of the candidates in the last election easily could..

 

Over the course of the last presidential campaign it felt as if there’s been a decline in behavioral standards across the board. Many of the traits of character and leadership that Obama possesses, and that maybe most people took much for granted, was suddenly gone missing or in short supply.

 

Americans had Trump and Clinton to choose from, both of whom do not seem to have a great public image especially after the election campaign and presidential debates. The media continuously called out Trump notoriously for being sexist after his controversial comment on ‘women being easy if the man has the money’ (among many others), and Clinton’s leaked emails became another big controversy during the run-up to the elections, though she was later cleared by the FBI....

 

OK, this honestly is not about Donald Trump. I mean, the man has been positively surprising me since he was elected. Not about Hilary Clinton either, she has my respect, earned or not. It's equally not just about Obama's government and the LGBT community.

Of course, President Obama went on to have a distinguished record on LGBT rights, becoming by far the most progressive President on LGBT issues in US history - yet this piece isn't just about us and our attainments.

 

This is simply about Barrack Obama, his wife Michelle and their 'kind', I've not seen two more beautiful hearts than these two. And they look 'ice-cream' together -,I'm not a fan of heterosexual marriage in any way.

 

Come January 20 2017, Barrack Obama will leave the White House and I will miss him (& I've said that before, yes?), I'm sure we all will.

 

Now this is the kind of man that even though you may disagree or may be disappointed with his policy decisions, you still have this feel that he's done the right thing. Yeah, integrity like that.

 

Aside his grand political achievements as a president, Obama, during his eight-year tenure, came to be known as the “people’s leader”, someone everyone could connect with. He played around with kids on basketball fields, surprised his employees with birthday cakes, happily shocked a bride by showing up at her wedding, and has shown a great sense of humour, empathy and compassion at all times in public. 'Very consistent Obama'.

 

There are many costly virtues possessed by the Obama's that we surely won't be seeing a lot of, especially in the next 8 years but here are the most 'seemingly- simple' traits we'll miss from one of the most gracious leaders the world has ever had;

 

I personally will miss his BASIC INTEGRITY. It's popular knowledge that the Obama administration has been remarkably scandal-free. Think of the way Iran-contra or the Lewinsky scandals gulped years from Reagan and Clinton.

 

We’ve seen very little of that from Obama. He and his staff have generally behaved with basic rectitude. Most other Presidents constantly have to hold these defensive press conferences, trying to explain away some vaguely shady shortcut taken, or a decision made, but Obama has not had to do that.

 

He and his wife have not only displayed superior integrity themselves, they have mostly attracted and hired people with high personal standards. There are all sorts of unsightly characters floating around politics these days, but these sort has been blocked from team Obama. 'Two of a kind Obama's'.

 

I will equally miss his sense of BASIC HUMANITY. Unlike his in-coming colleague, who spent much of his campaign vowing to block Muslim, African and Mexican immigration. You can only say so if you treat non-white Americans etc as an abstraction. President Obama, meanwhile, went to a mosque, looked into people’s eyes and gave a wonderful speech reasserting their place as Americans.

 

He’s exuded this basic care and respect for the dignity of others time and time again. The feeling is like this: If Barack and Michelle Obama joined the board of a charity you’re involved in, you’d be happy to have such people in your community. You can't say that comfortably about many politicians. This quality of a President’s humanity flows out in the unexpected but important moments. 'Humane Obama!'

 

I'll yet miss that SOUNDNESS IN HIS DECISION-MAKING PROCESS. Even people who were disappointed that the president didn’t take their advice..those disappointed staffers almost always felt that their views had been considered in depth.

 

Obama’s basic approach is to promote his values as much as he can within the limits of the situation. In contrast, other Presidents would be so blinded by their values that the reality of the situation does not seem to penetrate their mind. 'Totally on-ground

Obama'

 

I don't want to give much examples because I want this to be as less political as possible. Like, President Obama may have been too cautious, especially in the Middle East, but at least he’s able to grasp the reality of the situation.

 

Then, I'll surely miss His GRACE UNDER PRESSURE. "You might argue that it could be charming that Marco Rubio gets nervous on the big occasions — that he grabs for the bottle of water, breaks out in a sweat and went robotic in the last debate. It shows Rubio is a normal person". You may also argue that overconfidence is one of Obama’s great flaws. But I think again: a president has to maintain equipoise under enormous pressure. Obama has done that in times of many American crisis, especially amid the financial crisis. 'GRACE is a gift'.

 

 

I'll definitely miss that his RESILENT SENSE OF OPTIMISM. To hear Sanders or Trump, Cruz and Ben Carson campaign is to wallow in the pornography of pessimism, to conclude that America is on the verge of complete collapse. That’s simply not true. America have problems, but they are less serious than those faced by just about any other nation on earth.

 

People are motivated to make wise choices more by hope and opportunity than by fear, cynicism, hatred and despair. Unlike many political candidates, Obama has not appealed to those passions.

 

No, Obama has not been temperamentally perfect. Too often he’s been seen as disdainful, aloof, resentful and insular. But there is this popular tone of ugliness creeping across the world, as democracies retreat, as tribalism mounts, as suspiciousness and authoritarianism take center stage. 'Positive hope!'

 

Obama radiates this ethos of integrity, humanity, good manners and elegance that I know America will miss, and that I suspect we will all miss a bit.

 

 

 

And the LGBT?

 

 

Though Obama was elected on a liberal platform in 2008, during the first few years of his Presidency, progress was slow-going on LGBT rights.

 

He remained officially opposed to same-sex marriage until 2012, though his private support was an open secret. Momentum on issues from the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell to anti-discrimination protections was also slow, due to bureaucratic hurdles. And gay rights activists were not giving him any soft landing, yet he remained calm and focused until he perfected equality and freedom for all.

Hear him:

 

“There have been times where on LGBT issues… when we were trying to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and I got the Pentagon and Bob Gates, a Republican holdover from the Bush administration, to authorize a study of how you might end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. It was going to take a year to conduct that study, issue a report, and figure out how it might be implemented, what effect it would have on unit cohesion and military effectiveness. I had laid out this strategy because if I could get the Pentagon’s imprimatur on this thing, then I knew that we could end up getting legislation passed to reverse the policy, and we could get the branches of all the military to implement it...

 

“But during the course of that year, probably every speech I gave, I’d have gay activists just screaming at me during rallies. You just felt like saying, ‘Come on, man. Not only do I agree with you, but I’ve actually got a strategy to execute, we are executing it, and in what sense do you think that you yelling at me here is going to advance your cause?' it really hurt, but those are the moments you'd just smile like everything was ok" - what a man!

 

He added: “The problem was… they hadn’t done sufficient homework to know that I didn’t have all the capacity they thought I did in order to just execute this through the stroke of a pen. So I think that where I’ve gotten frustrated during the course of my presidency has never been because I was getting pushed too hard by activists to see the justness of a cause or the essence of an issue; I think where I get frustrated at times was the belief that the president can do anything if he just decides he wants to do it. That sort of lack of awareness on the part of an activist about the constraints of our political system and the constraints on this office.

 

“ Because you feel like saying to these folks, ‘[Don’t] you think if I could do it, I [would] have just done it? Do you think that the only problem is that I don’t care enough about the plight of poor people, or gay people, or immigrants, or…?’'

 

Before leaving office, Barrack Obama went ahead to do the following, amongst others) for the LGBT community.

 

-He signed a federal hate crime law.

- He filed legal briefs that helped bring about equal marriage.

- He overturned Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

- He helped bring down the Defence of Marriage Act.

-He banned homophobic discrimination for federal contractors.

-He appointed an LGBT rights envoy.

-He appointed a string of openly gay ambassadors and officials.

-He oversaw a State Department that defends equality around the world.

-He challenged anti-gay world leaders to their face.

- He lit up the White House as a symbol of Pride.

-He held a number of LGBT rights receptions.

-He enshrined protections for LGBT people in healthcare law under Obamacare.

-He Issued a directive urging schools to protect LGBT students

-He helped block a number of homophobic Republican bills.

-He recognised Ellen DeGeneres with a Congressional Medal of Freedom.

-He made the Stonewall Inn a national monument.

 

And led the American nation in mourning after the Pulse tragedy

 

 

Like one Nigerian LGBT exclaimed:

 

"This is what graduating in flying colors feels and look like……. Barack Hussain Obama!"

 

 

BARRACK HUSSAIN OBAMA: 44th President of the USA; Jan 20, 2009 - Jan 20, 2017.

 

Well, what do you know?