Obama's Farewell Address

Obama’s Farewell
The View from the Middle

If you have read my articles, you must know that I am a small government guy. I totally agree with Carly Fiorina’s assessment that our government is too large, too expensive, too corrupt, too inept, too wasteful and it is stifling the aspirations of our citizens. And since most Americans agree with most if not all of that appraisal, why would we want to make government bigger?
Yet, Barack Obama is a big government guy. If we have a problem, government is the solution. Have a problem with healthcare? Let’s put it under government control. Our kids’ math and science scores continue to fall behind other developed countries? Let’s throw gobs of money at our failing public school system. I don’t hate Barack Obama, but I do fundamentally disagree with most of his policies.
But when he says something good, I will be glad to report it and support it. With that in mind, I must confess that I actually agree with almost everything he said in his farewell address, and I hope ALL Americans were listening and willing to implement his suggestions. Let me layout a few of the themes I identified.
I thought his major overall message was one of unity, which I have written about often. He said, “We have to start with the premise that every American loves this country as much as we do.” Absolutely! He suggested that we must embrace new American citizens and allow them to participate in the promise of freedom that brought them here. But he also added that THEY must accept the American creed and assimilate into our society. I certainly can support both sides of that challenge.
He laid out a theme of civility, which I believe is sorely needed in our country today. He said, “ we must reject the bitter rancor in politics today”, and I do. Whether it is the grade school insults like “crooked Hillary”, or “lyin’ Ted” or the multi-syllabic, pseud-intellectual epithets like misogynist, or xenophobe or homophobe or bigot, he was denouncing them all. While the crowd cheered wildly at that comment, I hope they understand that there have been mountains of offenses from both sides of the political equation in this area.
He even proposed that Democrats and Republicans should listen and pay attention to “the middle-age white guy”. This was particularly gratifying to me for a couple of reasons. First, I am one of those guys, maybe at the high end of “middle-age”, but I’m in there. Secondly, it seems that it is still politically correct to denigrate, malign and even discriminate against that group. Now, he may have done this for political expediency, since this is the group that kept Hillary out of the White House, but it’s still nice to have the President stand up for me and my peeps.
Finally, he stated that we must have a peaceful transition of power from his administration to the new Trump administration. He also gave credit to George W. Bush for the handoff he gave to him. I am proud of George Bush for his transition, and I would hope that every President would see the benefit of such coordination. It is clear, however, that his fellow Democrats do NOT agree with the President on this subject as they try their best to distract, obstruct and delegitimize our next President. There is still time, however, and I hope Democrats, the media and even some “never Trump” Republicans will see the wisdom of President Obama’s words and stand down.
In my opinion, this farewell address rivaled his famous “there is no Black America and White America” speech of 2004. It was well constructed and well delivered (there was a bit of an echo problem, but you can’t blame Obama for that). But it was just words. Even according to President Obama, he did not deliver the unity that famous speech vowed.
Over the next few months and years, we, the American people, should continue to remind Mr. Obama and his supporters of the words he spoke in this farewell address. We need to hold them accountable and point out when they are being hypocritical of these promises. If they actually deliver on this pledge of unity and civility, I will be surprised, but pleased.