Jessica

Vozel

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May 4, 2009

Obama’s Everywhere, And That’s a Good Thing

In the May 4 issue of Newsweek, George Will criticized President Obama’s visibility these last hundred days, accusing him of “constantly flitting here and there” and “bombard[ing] the nation with his presence.” Unlike the careful, planned absences and periodic silences of Calvin Coolidge and Ronald Reagan – who spent a year’s worth of his presidency at his ranch – Obama has elected to remain in the thick of things at the White House. Will implies that Obama is immodest and narcissistic in believing that people want to know what he’s up to. The truth is, George, 81 percent of them do. 

First, Obama is part of an administration that pushes for transparency. Perhaps that transparency results in information overload, but it sure beats the paucity of information during the Bush years. Bush may have spent weeks at his Texas ranch, allowing the public to miss him, but who knows what plans he and his administration were cooking up during such sequestering (the recently released torture memos have suggested some possibilities, though).

I’d rather have an overabundance of publicity than the looming quiet of past administrations that, to me, is more narcissistic – the implication being that the public does not deserve to know what its government is doing behind closed doors. It wasn’t modesty that kept Bush quiet. It was necessity – a deliberate concealment to keep an increasingly disapproving public complacent. 

Imagine, too, if Obama were to disappear in this time of myriad public crises. Certainly, it’s Obama’s duty as our nation’s leader to be around right now, to be holding press conferences and keeping Americans informed. Ducking away just 100 days in, especially given the volatility of those first 100 days, would be irresponsible.

But there’s a second side to this – one that Frank Rich elucidates in The New York Times. The president’s private life has received unprecedented fawning news coverage, with CNN giving journalistic merit to Bo the White House dog. A recent “date night” for the first couple gets play-by-play treatment in the Washington Times, with to-the-minute motorcade arrival and departure times coupled with a long descriptions about the restaurant at which they chose to dine (Citronelle, billed as “a reprieve from traditional East Coast dining” with an atmosphere “as fresh and bright as the cuisine that graces its tables”). Not since Brangelina has a famous couple received this kind of media saturation. 

According to Rich, the Obamas masterfully orchestrate their family’s image, so one can’t exactly accuse the media of privacy invasion and pretend the first family is heckled against their will. Still, as Rich suggests, there is a demand for such coverage, and the flagging journalism industry is trying to stay afloat, too. People want to ogle the hippest White House occupants since the Kennedys, and the news media pushes the product they know will sell. 

Making hermits of themselves will only hurt the Obamas in public opinion. And right now, that opinion is holding strong in their favor, with 81 percent of Americans saying they like the president personally at the 100-day mark, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll. For the 19 percent on the other side however, the Obama adoration is understandably frustrating. George Will is certainly fed up. 

It’s easy, too, to conflate an overabundance of private-life coverage with visible politics. Will seems to suggest that quiet on both fronts is ideal. It’s not. One – the political arena – deserves bright, constant stage lights. That Obama’s private life receives the same treatment is not a reason to dim them. 

Will closes his piece by remarking that history will sweep Obama into its current – that “the nation that elects the 88^th (president) probably will remember little about what the 44^th did.” We can’t foresee the future, but I disagree with Will’s prediction. For several reasons, it would seem that history’s current will have to bend a bit to accommodate President Obama.

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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