MOUNT RUSHMORE AND OBAMA: AN OBLIGATIONS

President Barak Obama is a great man. It is not just me who thinks that. The Noble Prize committee recognized him as a great man early in his tenure. Everything about the man smacks of greatness being his destiny. We can be sure that he never sat down and said as much to himself but I believe every decision he made put him on the path to greatness. Several days ago I posted a bog about Thomas Jefferson. I based the bog on a revisionist history written by Jon Meacham, who saw fit to recount much of the debris of Jefferson’s life but counter balanced by the tread of greatness embedded at an early age. The Face of Jefferson, the man who kept this country on a path of republicanism, on Mount Rushmore is magnificent but the book pointed out the rubble at the base of that mountain. My point in mentioning this is that there would be no Obama rubble.  How sculptures could do this, I have no idea but that would be the case. Said another way, if Jefferson deserves to be there, and he certainly does, then so does Obama for multiple additional reasons over and above reasons of purity.

Obama’s republicanism is certainly equal to that of Jefferson. He faced both diplomatic and economic challenges as great if not greater than any past president did in his first term, and the prospects seem even more challenging for the second term.  Ironically, the very same political forces are at play. The great fear of the “monocrats” in Jefferson’s day was that republicanism represents no more than mob rule. If even the rabble, including slaves and women, could vote, then chaos would reign. They wanted what they considered the elite to rule, and what we should do is go to them to find out who and what that meant, which for many of them was King George III. This is a direct challenge to the core of our countries politics, “We the people of the United States . . . .

On top of two shooting wars, a failing, corrupt banking, and mortgage system, add voter suppression and district gerrymandering into the picture complicated by the Citizens United Decision most devastating Supreme Court ruling ever in terms of endangerment to republicanism and you have what Obama faced that Jefferson did not have to face. There is more. The man is beautifully handling the intricacies of changing the method of warfare from bayonets and horse to satellites and drones and from conflict with political boarders to handling international conflict while overcoming constraints imposed by sovereignty issues. He is doing all of this against the conservative Pentagon bias and a hostile House of Representatives.  Now, throw in the humanization of our culture in respect to gun legislation as topping.  He not only deserves a spot on Mount Rushmore but we should feel obligated to put his face there.