by Duane Gundrum

Created on: December 08, 2008   Last Updated: January 09, 2009

One of the problems with the Obama cult is that he rode a very fortunate wave that literally swept out Bush and his cronies. A lot of people became Obama-maniacs, mainly because they were looking for an alternative to "business as usual". Now, this is usually where a writer will then reveal that he or she really hates Obama (and rips him and his ideas to shreds) or this is where the writer proves that Kool-Aid is still a wonderful drink and does everything to show how much he or she is a huge fan of Obama. I, fortunately, do not intend to do either. I neither like or dislike Obama. I did, however, support getting rid of Bush and 4 more years of Bush-like governance, so the issue does cause me to have some concern, consternation and hope for the future. It is about that of which I wish to discuss.

First off, there are going to be serious expectations from Obama during this presidency, and it could not have come at a more necessary time. There will be no honeymoon period, because the country is in desperate need of fixing in numerous areas, to include its economy, foreign policy, domestic policies, education and pretty much every other issue under the sun. Eight years of one sided behavior has caused a dearth of fixes and it almost feels as if the instruments to fix these problems were sold at a garage sale when Bush first took office. There is going to be a lot of work ahead of Obama and his team.

And this is the problem. The expectations on Obama are huge. America and a good portion of the rest of the world is demanding that things be fixed, and we are about to discover if this one man is capable of doing just that. For all we know, he might be the Second Coming, and he might fix everything. But that is a pretty big order to fill. Unfortunately, the first time that we start to hear the word "compromise" or find out that in some cases it's better to stay the course, people are going to become very disappointed, and the honeymoon will be over before it began. There is a whole slough of conservatives just waiting for Obama to make his first mistake so they can yell, "I told you so." My understanding is that there are conservatives already trying to challenge Obama's citizenship, so these people are not going to rest once they get a target in their sights.

America is not a very patient animal. We tend to want things done immediately, and we rarely accept anything that is second best. Meanwhile, we personally strive for mediocrity all of the time for ourselves with

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