President Obama

So finally we get to say President Obama, not President-Elect Obama. So finally we get to say good-riddance to President Bush.

It is a shame that Bush leaves with a multi-million dollar security detail and a huge pension for the rest of his life. Especially considering all of the public money he squandered on family interests and self-righteous aims, but maybe the world, and especially America needed his reign to understand the concept of real change, belief in hope and what staying positive in rough times is. Bush always tried to instil this idea into the people – I do really believe this – but could never get it right. His personality didn’t suit the idea of hope and calm during tough times. All he did was be a smug, southern oil merchant business type. Not the president of the people.

So writhing in the pain that Bush left behind we usher in a new glorious leader to America. Can he actually make a difference? Somewhat. But his biggest miracle as a modern messiah is that he is making people truly believe that things will be OK.

Now sure I’m Irish, in Ireland with a job and a skillset that means I’ll always be “alright”, but the western world relies so heavily on America. If the people themselves reclaim the streets and work together the American disaster that currently exists can be worked through, and the rest of us will follow suit eventually.

Putting it into an Irish context, if we had someone who we could truly believe in and would inspire us to move forward as a nation, DeValera or Collins style, maybe things would be ok. Actually OK. Not a fake belief in the idea that things are OK, but things would really be OK. Thousands of people wouldn’t be on dole queues worrying about mortgages and feeding their kids because they’d really believe that they can get out there and change their own situation.

This idea can’t come from Irish political parties, because they’re all useless. All of them. The current holders of power couldn’t really have screwed things up much worse. We went from a country so far into the black we had other countries copying our style. Things were really good. Now we’re so far in the red, and the government has taken on more debt from a bank, that the EU is calling us a lame duck.

This might be a very fantastical post, but a few years ago when a black nobody came onto the scene I told everyone I know that he’d be the president, and be the peoples’ president. Why can’t Ireland have that?