My memories of politics go all the way back to the Eisenhower administration, the classroom’s daily salute to the flag and the hoisting of a glass of milk to the President at lunch time.  I also heard President Kennedy speak and saw him in person as a kid, and I was convinced he was speaking directly to me when he called everyone to government service.

I was so enamored of Robert Kennedy, heard his call to action so loud and clear in 1968, that I sent him an invitation to my high school graduation.  The excitement and optimism at that time among so many of us was palpable, in the air every bit as much as the aroma of marijuana, and every bit as intoxicating.

While I did not necessarily share those same convictions about candidate Barack Obama last year as others did, I fervently hoped his election would eventually raise the level of belief in the future as existed in my youth.  He was young and vigorous, eloquent in speech, and I wanted so very much to believe again.

Plenty of Disappointment Felt

Last week’s Saturday Night Live skit suggesting now President Barack Obama has accomplished nothing as yet, nope, nada, not gonna happen, was intended as humor.  It cut very close to the bone, though, and its ring of truth was genuine.

To those of us well outside the beltway, just ordinary folk struggling to make it through the day safely and holding on to our jobs for dear life, there is a high level of disappointment. The President’s very brief and short shrift visit to New Orleans could not have served as a better illustration, frankly.

In a very poignant moment full of frustration and upset, the President was asked why the federal government continued to turn a blind eye and an empty hand toward the city’s need of a full service hospital some four years after the Katrina disaster.  Here was a slow pitch right down the middle of the plate if there was one to be thrown, and the President whiffed.

He told the young fellow he wished he could write a check, but blamed the Constitution and Congress for his inability to do so.  However, the Feds certainly had no trouble getting money into the hands of financial institutions early this year, money those scoundrels are using to pad over $140 billion in bonuses shortly.  It didn’t take four years for that government intervention, to say the least.

After that callous dismissal of the question, the President hopped on his jet to a $34,000 per couple fundraiser in San Francisco.  Talk about extremes in environment, Mr. President.  Disappointment, perhaps, is too mild a word.

We want to think our President is a better man than that, that he truly cares about those he serves.  We want to believe he understands the travails of the average American, will listen earnestly and sincerely to our questions, and who will just as earnestly and sincerely answer them for us.

His performance in New Orleans, though, makes it very hard to think or believe that at all about him.  His notion of “change” in American seems to have culminated in his election, that the first man of color in the White House was enough of an accomplishment.  Good at getting elected, not so good at governing, if you will.

His advisors have served him poorly if this is the best public relations they can think of for their man.  He appeared even farther removed from the ordinary man than anyone would have you believe, and it is shameful, frankly.

While there is plenty of disappointment to go around, let’s focus it on where it belongs.  He was elected, the final word is always his, and he’s the one to be held accountable.  We may wish for substantive accomplishments by which to judge him, but at the moment we have only his lack thereof, substantive or otherwise.