Boring Bobby, Boring Barry

Perhaps the most comforting criticism I hear about Obama is that he is boring, wonky, too professorial, too engaged in nuances. I like that. It tells me that throughout the hysteria of the final days and weeks of this presidential campaign, he has stayed the course because he has stayed boring. Boring means steady, a particularly positive attribute when the health and integrity of the nation is at stake. Last week, a high school classmate of mine and her husband drove to Michigan from Colorado Springs, Colorado to attend our 50 year high school reunion. We played golf at my club, Gowanie Golf Club, a tight little tract, not too long, but treacherously narrow. The husband is called Boring Bobby D by his friends because he has this tendency to hit his drives right down the exact center of the fairways. Boring Bobby amply demonstrated the nickname last week and is probably driving home right now telling Carol that he didn't think my course was too hard. Hole after hole he drove the ball to the center, or near center, of the fairway. On two separate occasions, I stepped off the distance of his ball from the left edge and the right edge of the fairway. The distances were exactly the same. His ball was in the exact center of the fairway. Boring! After I completed the measurements on his ball, I would drive over to the rough to see if I could find my ball in the deep rough under a pile of leaves or hidden by a tree.

Other than boring, the biggest complaints I hear from my anti-Obama friends are that he is too liberal, that he will be a tax and spend guy, that the country is going to turn socialist, etc, etc, etc. I predict that we are all going to be in for a pleasant surprise. For the ultra-liberals, it won't necessarily be to their liking. Obama has emonstrated all the early signs of being a centrist based upon a clear and apparent sense about doing what is right for our country without a hidden agenda (e.g. lining the pockets of the fat cat oil executives like He who Is Now Nameless did). Consider, for example, getting the troops out of Iraq. Obama refuses to box himself into a position that will adhere to a rigid inflexible timeline for troop withdrawal, nor will he, as Nameless has done, turn over the reins of Commander-In-Chief to General Petraeus. In other words, Obama prefers his announced timeline, but is not wedded to it. The same centrist signals are being sent by him regarding hunting down bin Laden in the mountains of Pakistan. He is to the right of McCain on this issue and his stated position is the one that makes most sense. Mark my words. His inauguration speech will be a variation of JFK's famous declaration of "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." We all need to take some personal responsibility for the mess this country is in. We all participated in creating the problem and we all must engage at the most basic of levels in working out of the dilemma. It may be something simple like paying an extra amount of taxes to reduce the horrible burden that cannot be shifted simply to the next generation of Americans, i.e. our children and grandchildren. We have been drunk in excesses. In such a time, the boring, but steady hand of Obama, is comforting and reassuring. It is time to take the cure by allowing Boring Barry to take us there.