Who is O continued?

---------- continued from previous, see, some people know how to keep promises, sometimes

It's hard for me to write about Election Day. I certainly felt that historic jubilance - something good that I thought I'd never see in my lifetime had happened - something that didn't mean everything was better but that some things could get better.
And I had a positive opinion of the man I'd voted for, the man who'd won. [I've never been able to decide if this private joke is racist, that Obama was such a good candidate I would have voted for him even if he was white.]
At the same time, I had a bad feeling... the country was in a bad place economically... he was a politician... would he do the right things, which seemed needing more than ever since the thirties... we needed another FDR, but O was a Democrat... would he snatch defeat from the jaws of victory (this once a quip but now a trope about the Dems)?... would he fold?
I didn't join the celebration in the streets. I regret it somewhat, missing the unique, once in a lifetime and all that. But I had a nagging feeling that I was setting up for a disappointment, that O was no FDR, that no leader was that brave or desperate now, and that one day the memory of celebration would make me feel all more the fool....
When I think of all that I thought good about Obama, an image immediately comes to mind, of, I think, his first press conference as president. I was happy to see my country represented by the man who'd campaigned, quick and smart. The image that summons up all the good for me of Barack Obama is him standing at the presidential lectern, lightly gripping the sides, with one foot tilted up behind him and resting on its toe. Gracefulness married to intelligence - a Fred Astaire of the mind.
Where did this O go? What happened to him? When did he become so dumb?
I think it was the announcement that he had conferred with the pharmaceutical industry and taken their demands as given in health care reform that broke me on him. Somewhere around that time my friend Richard loaned me his copy of Dreams from My Father, and I returned it unread. I could tell from flicking through it that the prose was interesting and involving, but I just couldn't bear to be engaged with sympathy in this guy I had a feeling was going to be a terrible, terrible disappointment. I had already stopped watching his media appearances - too painful.
I swore I'd keep the faith until the fate of the public option was decided. And when it was, I gave up hope that this guy was anything like the leader I thought we needed now more urgently than ever.
Let me skip policy for the moment, and maybe for good.
This intelligent, graceful man, who I am convinced is neither evil nor traitorous nor foolish, has enemies. His enemies defame him, threaten him, lie about him, with no regard for previous standards of decency, courtesy or truthfulness. They have said that there is nothing more important to them than causing Barack Obama failure and turning him out of office after one term, if not sooner. They said it again today. Why does Barack Obama still declare and act as if constructive cooperation with these people is possible? Not desirable, but even possible? They would not applaud him even as he cut his own throat.
So who is this guy? I'm baffled. My next book up is David Remnick's The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama. I would just hope to get some idea of what the man is thinking.
It's a library copy. It happens that it has been bound with the jacket inverted and reversed from the body of the book. It raises an interesting problem. How shall I read this book during quiet times at work or on the bus? It will look to others as if I am very carefully reading the story of our President upside-down. I could make a paper cover, but what am I to say if somebody peers over my shoulder and wonders why I found it necessary to hide that I was reading the President's biography? I don't think this accident says anything about Barack Obama, but I do wonder if it says anything about me.