U.S. President Barack Obama recently addressed "the world" at the famous Brandenburg Gate with only 6,000 highly vetted "guests" compared to over 200,000 that watched him raise the stakes of democratic excellence in 2008.
There is no question the president has made history by becoming the first "African-American" (he is actually half-white and half-African but the old American "one drop rule" supposedly makes him "black" or "African-American") to occupy the White House, but he has also made a dubious history by becoming the first American president to "explicitly assert the extrajudicial power to kill American citizens in their homes."
As the president's domestic and foreign policies have evolved over the last five years, it has for the most part being a comedy of unfortunate pitfalls.
From the ill-advised overthrow of Muammar Ghaddafi that has led to that country being over-run by an axis of Al Qaeda to the Benghazi tragedy; not to mention the equally naive decision to support Egypt's Islamists over Hosni Mubarak (a decision that may have compromised the long-term security of Israel), the Obama White House has seemingly pushed the wrong button on critical issues.
Still on the global front, the president is now being pushed to support a basically unknown entity in the Syrian civil war - the rebels; who for all intents and purposes do not exactly engender a sense of democratic ideals, while at the same time refusing to place Boko Haram, the Islamic terrorist group operating in Nigeria on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations. Instead, the White House and the U.S. State Department have spent more time criticizing the Nigerian government for taking the moral and judicious imperative to protect its citizens from a murderous group of savages that have specialized in killing women and children at will.
On the home front, it has been the same laundry list of missteps by the president and his team. From the IRS "oversight" to the NSA surveillance, there is the feeling at home and abroad that as opposed to the principles of democracy where citizens watch their government (as should be the case), what we have under this president is a semblance or the equivalent of tyranny - government watching citizens.
Regardless of the great speeches that may yet still come from this highly gifted but seemingly misguided president, "I have a dream" has now become "We have a nightmare" and "Yes we can" has been lost to the pervading reality of "Yes we scan" - yes, they scan and sift through your records and mine, although we supposedly leave in the freest and most democratic country in the history of mankind.
The latter, friends, is not naive nostalgia. In fact, it is the reason why I and many others left everything and everyone we loved and sojourned across the oceans, in search of the reality; yes, the reality of the American morning (after the darkness of despair), the American dream whose realism entailed the relentless pursuit and attainment of life (with its human challenges and triumphs), liberty and happiness.
Somehow along the way, this president lost it, but then again, maybe we were all just bamboozled. But don't blame us; he over-promised and we all yearned for a return back to the American century.
That century may however have been lost for good, unless we collectively fight as a united nation to get it back.
Yes we can, maybe not with this president.
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