To Obama with Love, and Hate, and Desperation

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/magazine/what-americans-wrote-to-obama.html

by sxyuan • 10 years ago

58 24 10 years ago

cyberferret2• 10 years ago

Very interesting read - I am halfway through it.

I wonder if the new POTUS will keep the same tradition of having 10 letters each day added to his daily briefing?

NOTE: Not a snarky comment. Just genuinely curious query if this is a 'thing' that all past presidents did, and future ones will?

general_ai2• 10 years ago

Do you really believe he had the time to read 10 letters every day? Even at 5 minutes per letter that'd take 50 minutes. I just don't see how that's possible.

cyberferret2• 10 years ago

I learned long ago that what I do, or do not believe is achievable, is not applicable to 99.99999% of the general population.

d23• 10 years ago

I'm not sure why you're putting 5 minutes per letter in there. I'm sure he's a well-read guy. It's not crazy to think he could get through a one page letter in a minute or less.

nicpottier• 10 years ago

The article has sample letters, they don't seem overly long. Maybe figure 3 minutes average? So closer to 30?

Don't see any reason we should doubt it considering the apparatus that was in place to make sure he could and it was a stated goal.

anigbrowl• 10 years ago

Norms and tradition are at the bottom of the incoming administration's priorities, as far as I can see.

vinhboy• 10 years ago

A lot of people in this country really hates Obama. And it seems, when you take out all the other ugliness, they base that hate on the idea that he is not genuine.

President Obama was the first to come up with a deliberate and explicit practice of 10 letters every day.

But reading things like this, and a myriad of other things about Obama, I think that if you could scientifically quantify genuineness, Obama would rank at the very top. So I find it really offensive when people attack the man on his integrity.

You can attack his policy, but if you attack the man, I can not, and will not, agree with you.

agumonkey• 10 years ago

Seems like Obama was put on a spot more than other presidents. He could say the right things, act the right way[1]; yet if at any point something negative came (drones, nsa) he would be bashed generously. People expect A+ from him and scream at an A-. The sad part is that Trump is said to have been elected because he was felt like a true person; I understand their sentiment, his mouth seems unfiltered, so he's a true nasty person but people still prefer that to someone that looks like 90% good samaritan.

[1] you can find lots of videos where he would adress antagonistic crowds peacefully and wisely. Lots of times where he showed caring (his behavior toward his wife) and a sane personality (cracking turkey jokes with his daugthers).

rdtsc• 10 years ago

Seems like Obama was put on a spot more than other presidents.

Another element there is the benchmark against which he set himself up for -- Hope and Change. I remember having a lot of hope and now after 8 years, it feels kid of "meh". There were some good things, but also a lot of blunders. I guess I shouldn't expect much from that political office.

Not sure about Trump. Having lived in the Rust Belt I can see how people there understand and follow him. And I heard he just withdrew from TPP, not bad so far.

Inconel• 10 years ago

I agree that many people, particularly on the right, hold Obama to an unrealistic standard while willingly overlooking much more serious flaws among candidates they support. However, I'm not sure I agree that you can't attack the man, can you really separate the policy from the man at this level?

I for one find nothing offensive about attacking his integrity due to his massive expansion of state surveillance. To me that seems like a case of poor policy and poor integrity.

On a personal level, I find him much more genuine and likable than Trump, I'm sure Obama would be great to grab a beer or coffee with. On the other hand, I much rather the President be terrible to grab coffee with but in return not think it acceptable to order drone strikes on American citizens.

jusq22• 10 years ago

The guy was unqualified for the job.

Just think about what it takes to be sitting on top of the massive hierarchy that is the govt.

If there is an issue X you need to know who to talk to, who to trust, who has power and influence to make things happen, what you can offer them in return etc etc. How the fuck was Obama ever qualified to know all that?

So if you have an issue with Education or Pakistan or Wall Street lots of delegation happens to random people who have their own agendas.

So what happened in his first couple years, was he was just used by much more savvy operators. And once he realized it, he spent the remaining years trusting no one.

You can't take someone with a few years of real world experience put them in charge of a massive org and expect them to know what they are doing.

But unfortunately as Daniel Kahnemen says there is huge demand for overconfidence. So we end up with leaders like Obama and Trump.

jakeogh• 10 years ago

He was definitely in over his head. The constant vacations and 333 golf outings are telling imho. Major props to him for keeping us out of a large scale war though.

"someone with a few years of real world experience put them in charge of a massive org" is objectively not Trump. However you want to cut it, he has an adult life of real-world experience doing exactly that.

umberway2• 10 years ago

It seems to me (as an outsider) that people in the U.S.A. now more than ever judge the President for what he symbolises. Perhaps this explains the power of constitutional monarchy (not advocating one system over the other; just an observation).

bigger_cheese• 10 years ago

As someone who lives in a constitutional monarchy (Australia). The Royal family is largely seen as a bit of an odd quirk the Queen's head is stamped on the back of our coins but other than that it means very little to most people. I honestly don't know the name of our current Governor General.

One thing that stands out to me is American's seem to have more respect towards elected officials then we do here. For example the sample letters in the article all address Obama as "Sir" or "Mr President". I cannot imagine people addressing our Prime Minister that Formally/politely.

I think it is a cultural issue most people here tend to be very cynical about government and distrustful of politicians.

umberway2• 10 years ago

Queen's head is stamped on the back of our coins

Exactly. She's a symbol :-)

alistproducer2• 10 years ago

I seriously hate political articles on HN. There are enough places in the net where you can finger-argue with strangers. Can't we just let HN be a place where we come to learn an talk about tech an tech business?

camel_Snake• 10 years ago

Here's a simple solution: don't click the links or comments.

It's what everyone else does with article subjects they don't care for.

nindalf• 10 years ago

I wouldn't have considered myself an emotional person, but some of those letters touched me deeply. The anonymous letter from the partner of a soldier brought me to tears. I have often disagreed with Obama's policies and criticised him for his actions on drone strikes and mass surveillance. However I am now certain I could not do a better job than he did if I can't even read all the mail he got without crying.

Edit - the rationale behind some of his decisions is clearer. For example, he commuted more sentences than any other President. You would do that if you're reading mail from inmates and their relatives and friends on a regular basis. If you take the opposite approach and avoid such letters its much easier to insulate yourself from "criminals", telling yourself that they probably deserve to be where they are.

Similarly with engaging in the drone war and avoiding engagement in Syria. I hate the fact that so many innocent Yemenis and Pakistanis died in the drone war, but it makes sense that he would be much more cautious about deploying boots on the ground if he was regualarly reading the mail sent by servicemen and their families.

sgentle• 10 years ago

One of my favourite reads on politics in a long while. "These were people writing, and you’re a person reading, and the president is a person."

But of course the president isn't just a person. The tone in his voice moves the stock market, and the stroke of his pen can kill or save millions. And a person is a person, but the people? They're a mass of voices so loud and chaotic that you would go instantly mad if you could ever truly hear them all.

So the aloofness, the distance, the abstraction of governance is a symptom, not a cause, of inhumanity. It's telling that to break through it in the smallest way, just 10 letters to simulate a sense of personal connection between the president and the people, takes "50 staff members, 36 interns and a rotating roster of 300 volunteers".

Any time we talk about having a beer with the president, it's important to remember that this isn't your buddy, this is the avatar of the world's most powerful and dangerous political machinery. It's like a surgeon taking the time to joke around with you before he describes how he's going to bisect your ribcage. It's a nice gesture, but we still get our surgeons from medical school, not clown college.

Tulip68• 10 years ago

Damn I'm going to miss this guy.

I realize HN deserves a higher level of discourse, but it's just got to be said: Fuck Drumpf.

To Obama with Love, and Hate, and Desperation

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