Hope, Hype, and the Anti-Bush

So, Barack Obama eh?

See, I can be topical - a bit late, but when the subject is as big as this, what's a few weeks.

I worry about the bloke. Does anyone else think that he's already been set up to take a momentous fall?

I can't imagine that there were too many people who were sorry to see Dubya stepping down. A few comics will probably miss the easy target, and even Michael Moore might be able to take a step back and grab a holiday, but for the most part I expect that his departure was not met with wailing and the nashing of teeth.

Enter Barack Obama, the Anti-Bush, the great black hope, the second coming (third, if you count David Icke, although he obviously doesn't think so).

Now he could turn out to be America's answer to John Major or William Hague, and still be a massive improvement on his predecessor, but I can't help thinking that things have gone a bit too far - and the makers of this graphic obviously agree (although, maybe, a little more cynically than I)





Personally I have nothing against the man - and I accept that he's come into the job at the toughest time that I can remember for any US president (not that I've paid that much attention in the past). The war on terror - with its coincidental by-product of oil pipelines... allegedly - and the worldwide economic downturn...

[side note: anyone else notice how, despite confirmation of the UK's 'recession' status, and talk of the worst conditions since the great depression - or even before, it's all of a sudden become nothing more ominous than a "downturn" when the news media mention it?]

...all things considered, Obama is probably facing the toughest 'first day' at work since Vanessa Feltz took on a personal trainer.

But even against, or maybe because of, that backdrop I can't help feeling that a year or two down the line an awful lot of the 'hope' attached to BA Barack(us) will have faded - and the acceptance will be setting in that he's just another politician. Undoubtedly trying to do what he feels is best, but undoubtedly not bringing an era of great change to the world... or even the USA.

Maybe I'll be proved wrong, but somehow I think it unlikely - and when that realisation dawns I expect there to be some very red-faced people out there. Not least the customers of this establishment.

Bear in mind that I took this on a small side-street in Northampton - a part of the UK that, I would expect, will never cross the Obama administration's radar. Despite that, optimism over the coming of the new messiah is obviously riding very high indeed when you can put a notice like this up in the window of your barber-shop.