What change looks like

I wasn't expecting this from Peter Beinart, senior political writer for The Daily Beast, who in his latest essay wrote:

"I don’t know how Obama’s Libya intervention will end; in his speech, he made it seem tidier than it really is. But the speech had something notably absent from his addresses on Afghanistan: the ring of authenticity. When he said that he refused to sit by and watch Benghazi be raped, he sounded like a man speaking from the gut. Obama does not romanticize the history of American power and yet he is wielding American power. I wouldn’t want it any other way."

Neither would I.

I say again to Mr. Obama detractors, he is not perfect. No president is. He's made his share of mistakes. He'll make more. All presidents do. By all means criticize him. Rhetorically flagellate his politics or demeanor if you must. But the sheer quality and authenticity of this man should be "plain to any dispassionate eye." Granted, it won't deter or even temper denigration born of ignorance, resentment, prejudice or blind partisanship. Though, by all rights, it should.

But shouldn’t it be clear by now that this good man has the best interests of America at heart? I say the same was true of George W. Bush, another good man, politics aside. To paraphrase Orwell, why is it such a constant struggle for some to see what is in front of their nose? The answer to that is rooted in our epic history – a legacy marked by magnificence and, at times, monstrosity – and the ongoing struggle to form the “more perfect union” that Obama singularly embodies. As the president himself put it, “This is what change looks like.” Isn’t it about time that more of us appreciate this truth if not celebrate it?