Who Obama is not

MEMO TO those desperately seeking a presidential daddy figure (and that would most of the nation if you believe the press). You need to own up to a plain fact. Our president is not and never has been “Franklin Delano Obama.”

He is not the glad-handing fellow pictured at left clinching a cigarette holder upright in his teeth as he radiantly works the crowd. (That would be camera-needy Bill Clinton, minus the smokes.)

To be sure, Obama owns a set of dazzling high beams. Stare at his toothy smile too long and you’ll go blind. But there’s not an ounce of FDR ham in him. But Smoked Virginia Ham is exactly what the punditry says we need. ”Obama is aloof. Obama is cerebral. Obama lacks Bill Clinton's gift for political empathy. Obama is out of touch with the angry, frustrated mood of the country,” writes The Atlantic’s Christopher Orr, summarizing the near unanimous handwringing by the chattering class.

Um, except for one thing. Obama – who is as charismatic as they come – was hired for his brains and cool steadiness under fire, not his gregariousness, ability to do card tricks and dance for the cameras (again, that would be Bill Clinton). He was (and is) The Serious Man for Serious Times. Liberals proudly touted him as the perfect genetic cross between The American President’s Andrew Shepherd and the West Wing’s Jed Bartlet.

Had Time magazine done a more accurate caricature of the president, it would have Photoshopped him as “Honest Abe Obama.” To me, Obama is far more Abe Lincoln than FDR. Both have brilliant and serious minds. Both are blessed with rapier wit. Both are honest, charming and sincere. Like Lincoln, Obama is a strategic thinker. Like Lincoln, he is deeply introspective. Like Lincoln, he welcomes opposing viewpoints but does not suffer fools gladly. Like Lincoln, Obama exudes a serene confidence (the handmaiden of dazzling intellect and good fortune) often mistaken for arrogance. Both presidents are enigmatic. And, ironically, there is (I think) a trace of melancholy in Obama stemming, like Lincoln, from his upbringing.

But evidently, a brilliant, charismatic, Lincolnesque president simply won’t do. It turns out that when the going gets tough, the tough gets all wobbly on us. Now, it seems, everyone is screaming for the return of America’s Dad: Cliff Huxtable of the The Cosby Show. Daddy, did you save the world yet? It’s almost the weekend, and we need the keys to that car you got out of the ditch for us.

The mind reels.