I was watching my news feeds today, and one of the first stories I saw pop up was about how Obama had lied about staying a few weeks with his uncle. \u00a0What the article actually said was that Obama failed to correct it when the White House said that he hadn’t met his uncle. \u00a0This was headline news.<\/p>\n
My first reaction when reading this was, “So?” My next reaction was, “I wonder how some of the Obama haters in my friends list are going to twist this into Obama being the devil.”<\/p>\n
A few minutes later, I read that Nelson Mandela died.<\/p>\n
Damn.<\/p>\n
There are many reasons to respect Nelson Mandela, but the one I focus on was his ability to reject hate. \u00a0He had reasons to be bitter and angry and hateful, but he said that leaders don’t have time for hatred. \u00a0He was in jail for 27 years, and when he was sworn into office, he had one of his jailers present.<\/p>\n
The timing of the news of Mandela’s death next to Obama’s “lie” drew me into making some comparisons.<\/p>\n
I want to like and respect Obama as much as Mandela, but I can’t. \u00a0I don’t dislike our president. \u00a0I respect him, and I think he is a powerful speaker, and a good man. \u00a0I want more, though. \u00a0I want to see the measure of Obama’s convictions. \u00a0I don’t want him to sell his ideas to me, I want him to see his vision through.<\/p>\n
Maybe the Republican obstructionist ways have been keeping him from acting. \u00a0Maybe he’s just one man, and I’m expecting too much.<\/p>\n
Nelson Mandela was just one man, but when he stood for something, others stood with him.<\/p>\n
I want more. \u00a0Maybe the healthcare reform is the thing, but I’m not feeling it.<\/p>\n
The president is in his last term. \u00a0I want him to take a risk. \u00a0I don’t want him to try and do something popular, I want him to try and do something right. \u00a0I don’t know what that is yet. \u00a0Maybe if I figure out the answer, I’ll just go do it myself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was watching my news feeds today, and one of the first stories I saw pop up was about how Obama had lied about staying a few weeks with his uncle. \u00a0What the article actually said was that Obama failed to correct it when the White House said that he hadn’t met his uncle. \u00a0This […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":282,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions\/282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}