In a few hours, President Obama will begin his second term in office. Thank god we are not about to swear Mitt Romney in as our next president. That guy never told the truth about anything. Whenever a president is reelected, we see columns like this one in all the major papers that cover Washington. They are retrospectives about what the president and First Lady have learned and how they have changed, based on (mostly) anonymous friends’ and staffers’ observations. I enjoy articles in this genre, even though there is always plenty of ridiculous remote psychology involved. Jodi Kantor came up this next bit, which seems accurate.
The Obamas have gained and lost in their four years in the White House, becoming seasoned professionals instead of newcomers, more conventional, with a contracted sense of possibility. They are steady characters, not given to serial self-reinvention. Yet in interviews, current and former White House and campaign aides, donors and friends from Chicago said they could see how the president and the first lady had been affected by their roles.
Describing them, they used phrases like: more confident but more scarred. More isolated. Less hesitant about directing staff members, whether butlers or highest-level advisers. Gratified by re-election, which the Obamas view as sweet vindication, and bloodier-minded when it comes to beating Republicans. And Mr. Obama has learned that his presidency will be shaped by unanticipated events — “locusts,” one former aide called them, for the way they swarm without warning.
I think we have already seen signs of the bloody-mindedness. Ms. Kantor also does a nice job of demonstrating the inhuman demands the job puts on a person, especially the emotional demands.
But Mr. Obama also knows now that he is not fully in control of his fate, that the presidency will continue to bring tasks that no one could ever anticipate. Mr. and Mrs. Obama were supposed to spend the evening of Dec. 16 enjoying their daughter Sasha’s “Nutcracker” recital. Instead, the president was making condolence calls in cordoned-off rooms at Newtown High School.
“Words don’t exist” to describe the grief on his face as he approached the families, said Sarah D’Avino, whose sister Rachel died protecting her students. The president asked each family to describe the relative who died, paying special attention to the victims’ mothers. Mourning parents handed him pictures to carry back to the White House, and he told them that the children were beautiful, that the teachers were national heroes.
Moments later, he was smiling, on cue. One of his photographers was on hand, as always, and despite everything, the bereaved wanted pictures with the president.
I’m very glad that Obama was reelected, but I’m not sure why he wants four more years of this responsibility.
