Barack Obama: The Failure to Lead

I was afraid of this. It's one of the (many, many) reasons I didn't vote for him. I was afraid that instead of getting a Commander in Chief...we would get a Senator in Chief. And we did.

I wish I could say it gave me pleasure to find myself vindicated in this, but it doesn't. It only gives me a growing sense of forboding, a fear of what will happen should we find ourselves in a situation that does not just require leadership, but outright demands it. I live in New York, I know that day will come. New York City is the Tel Aviv of the 21st century, we all know that day is coming. I now simply have to hope it will not happen on this man's watch.

His failure to lead by appointing cabinet members who actually paid their taxes (at a time when he is asking Americans who do not work for the government to pay higher and higher taxes). His failure to lead in moving quickly to stabilize the automative industry. His failure to lead on health care reform. His failure to close Guantanamo Bay (moving the inmates to North Dakota didn't seem to go over as well as he'd planned...as if that counted as "closing" to begin with). His failure to take decisive action on the potential revolution happening right now in Iran (still happening, change the channel from the endless Michael Jackson retrospectives and you just might catch a glimpse of it). I could go on, and on. His unstimulating stimulus. His failure to achieve military success, or even just to stop the bleeding--and yes, he inherited the problem, he inherited all these problems, but that doesn't excuse him not fixing them, does it? Wasn't that what he was elected to do? Didn't he win because he promised that only he, of all the candidates running, would be able to fix these problems?

But where it really occurred to me that we have a senator instead of a president was on the issue of gay rights. I'm gay, I pay more attention on these things. Especially since I never thought he'd be good on gay issues, and I kept hoping to be proven wrong. He never promised us he'd work towards marriage equality, but there were two big things he did promise. Repealing the ridiculous Defense of Marriage Act. Repealing the disastrous and dangerous "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Since taking office, he has...accomplished the exact opposite of these.

He not only failed to lead on repealing DOMA and DADT, but in fact has acted counter to this promises in defending DOMA as comparable to laws preventing polygamy and incest, and in asking the Supreme Court not to evaluate DADT. Hell, he's discharging gay soldiers at a faster rate than Bill Clinton and only slightly slower than George W.

My question is not why. It's clear why. Were he to follow through on his promises to the gay community (promises he used to extract not just votes but money), he would face an African-American backlash that could prove catastrophic to his presidency. He also, I'm certain, figures there are not enough heterosexual voters out there who will be angered enough by his betrayal of the gay community to withhold their vote. Sadly, he's probably not wrong.

I don't believe he's actually homophobic, though I do find it questionable that none of his advisors are gay. I mean, even George W. Bush was able to get a few open homo's on the payroll, as did every other president since Jimmy Carter. I believe he has made this decision...out of fear. Because yes, there's a possibility (a very slim one) that were he to do the right thing on these issues, it might endanger his reelection prospects. And he's decided not to take that risk.

My question is...isn't that sad? And worse than sad, isn't that embarrassing? That we have a president who is declining to do the right thing simply because he wants to remain in office? Is the office not bigger than the man? Don't we expect the man (or God willing someday, woman) we elect to be able to put the nation's well-being ahead of his own ambitions? Hell, haven't we impeached (or nearly impeached) several men for blatantly doing the opposite?

My sadness and embarrassment only increased when I sat down to consider it and came to see that perhaps the last president we had who did what he believed in his heart was right even though it might endanger his chances of winning reelection (or his designated successor's chances)...was Gerald Ford. He knew pardoning Nixon was the right thing to do for the country. And he knew it would almost certainly destroy any chance he had at being reelected. Perhaps had Ford ever wanted to be president in the first place, he might not have been big enough to make such a choice. No one since has managed it. In fact, other than Ford, I can only count Johnson and Truman in the second half of the 20th century who were able to put what was right ahead of what was politically convenient.

We have been waiting for moral leadership since Gerald Ford. I never imagined that I would type such a sentence, but facts are stubborn things.

I can only continue to hope and pray that true leadership and moral integrity--regardless of the electoral consequences--will not be required of President Obama. I also hope and pray he faces a challenger who has the integrity to do the right thing towards the gay community. And I suspect he just might indeed, because if you were a Republican presidential contender and wanted to really hurt him...going to his left on gay rights would be a hell of a way to do it.

Heck, even Dick Cheney knows that.

I Am Not A Gay American

There is a phrase that I have come to detest, and in realizing this, I’ve had to ponder what exactly that means. The phrase came to us first, I believe, from former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey, who in resigning office announced to the world that he was more than just your average New Jersey politician but was in fact, also, a “gay American.” (I believe he resigned for having an affair with and later being blackmailed by a member of his security detail, not because he was a gay American, but that’s the phrase that stands out five years later.)

While I’m sure at a certain level this has always been the case, it seems to me that now, nearly a decade into the 21^st century, we Americans are a tad bit obsessed with labels. We have as many words to identify ourselves as Eskimos have for snow. If I so desired, I could say “I am a gay, Irish-, Franco-, Native American” and it would be entirely truthful but I have to wonder…why would I ever want to? Why does any of that matter? Should any of that matter? Against what am I handicapping when I say those things? Do those things outweigh a lesbian, Hispanic-, Scandinavian-, carb-free American? And if not, why bother?

This made me think of a remark Theodore Roosevelt once made, when addressing the Knights of Columbus in 1915:

"There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism.”

Now, when he said that, TR was a former president who was still considering another grab at the brass ring, and was looking down the barrel of World War I in a way most Americans were steadfastly refusing to do. He was talking about divided nationalities, but I think his words still resonate today. I mean, I was born here. My parents were born here. Their parents were born here. We’re southern, it goes back that way for quite a while. Something close to 35 generations, in fact. So while I distantly I have heritage that is not American, what bearing could that possibly have?

I'm certain I have friends and colleagues whose non-American heritage is less distant, and thusly may influence their perspective on a daily basis, but short of saying out-loud "As a Chinese-American of Female Identification, I would just like to say that ice cream gives me indigestion so could you guys try not to get an ice cream cake for my office birthday party this year?", when would such a thing be necessary to say? If one wants to hyphenate their Americanism on a racial basis, isn't it usually a little unnecessary to do so? Unless one is addressing a cluster of blind folks like the ones who wander around Chelsea all the time and keep bumping into me outside my gym. Then I guess there might be cause. But any other time? I have doubts.

And while I can easily equate my sexual orientation with my ethnic heritage, I freely accept that there are those who will choose not to do so. But I have to wonder, when they are introducing themselves as “gay Americans,” are they not asking you to evaluate them strictly through that particular lens, which they’re handing to you? And if you like them more than other gay Americans you’ve known, well, bully for them, but if you like them less, will you not always wonder if it’s just because you only chose to evaluate them through that particular lens? Which they handed you?

TR’s speech went on to call for sweeping immigration reform (the kind that would terrify Congress today if any politician suggested it let alone a former president), and gave a clarion call for Americans to stand together to stamp out racial and religious persecution in this country, which he only felt would be possible if we stopped thinking of ourselves as anything else before “American.” We’re in this together, or we’re not. Right?

While my sexual orientation certainly influences some of my decisions, and has absolutely colored my experience as an American differently than it would have were I heterosexual, the gays don’t have their own country. Or their own state. We have some neighborhoods, but they're not exclusive--I know for a fact most of those blind people are dyed in the wool breeders--but that’s about it. And while I absolutely believe it’s important for gays to be out in the open about their orientation, especially ones who live in the public eye, I don’t see any reason to place that before their national identity. Especially at a time when we are asking, begging, our country, our government, our neighbors to see us...as no different from themselves. Deserving of the same rights. Embodying the same qualities of compassion, concern, and patriotism.

I’m an American, first and foremost. Nothing should ever come in front of that. Nothing. With or without a hyphen.