Daddy, did you save the world yet?

“Daddy, did you plug the hole yet?” That was the actual question little Malia posed to her father, Daddy in Chief Obama, at the height of the BP oil spill crisis last spring. America – or at least the news networks – was then convinced that the world as we knew it was ending in a cataclysm of crude. (Funny – we, the world and the Gulf are still here. A tad over-hyped, perhaps?)

But Malia’s innocent interrogative is a good metaphor for the wildly unrealistic expectations held by the public today.

Speaking to the upcoming midterms, Washington Post political writer Dan Balz wrote:

A far grimmer mood now pervades the electorate, one shaped not just by the immediacy of the economic distress that has hit virtually every household, but by fears that it might take years for everyone, from the average family to the federal government, to climb out of the hole.

Memo to America: Well, of course it will take years. The hole is as deep as the Grand Canyon, and decades in the making. Life may seem like a movie, but it isn’t. President Jed Bartlet isn’t available to cinematically kiss our foreheads, say “don’t worry, sweetheart” and make it all better by the closing credits. There is no magic wand.

In a separate WaPo piece on the Obama-Stewart tête-à-tête, reporter Hank Stuever wrote:

“Poking gently at the president, [Jon] Stewart wondered what we all wonder: Can the economy truly recover?”

Memo to America: Well, of course the economy will recover. Assuming we won’t get taken out in a nuclear war (a safe bet), it’s only a question of when, not if. Does the Great Depression (1930s) ring a bell? That was way worse. And then there was that whole Second World War thing. Only our entire way of life hung in the balance. We survived both and thrived. We’ll survive the current Great Recession, too, and thrive.

On the media’s role in this, I know I sound like a broken CD track stuck on repeat. But they do play a huge role in stoking public despair. It’s collateral damage from pimping simple-minded narratives and chasing ratings.

So, what should President Obama do? Stay tuned for a later post.