For
\nthe first time in his presidency Barack Obama has, according to a
\nGallup poll, fallen below a fifty percent approval rating. It’s not
\nhard to see why. No, it’s not because he’s spending too much money.
\nThere seem to be many Americans who want him to boost social programs.
\nLess so is it because people perceive him as accomplishing little
\nbecause if he pulls off health care reform that is a big thing indeed.
\nNo, the principal reason Obama, who became President by electrifying
\nthe electorate, has fallen to earth is that he has become boring.
\nHumdrum. Can anyone recall any important line the President has uttered
\nsince assuming office or a single dazzling speech?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And lest we
\nmake the mistake of believing the President has become boring because
\nhis speeches are not up to par, let me be clear that I think the
\nboredom is only partially related to failure to excite with inspired
\noratory.<\/p>\n
Rather, the twin factors behind the President’s monotony are these: ubiquitousness and perfection.<\/p>\n
This president does not seem to understand the power of mystery. At
\nany given time, he is in China, Japan, Egypt, in the Rose Garden, at
\nthe UN, on your television screen, and on your radio. He does not
\nbelieve in holding back. The net result has been to make him all-too
\navailable and utterly ordinary. The same is true of his propensity to
\nprostrate himself – quite literally – in front of world leaders like
\nthe Saudi King and the Japanese Emperor. The issue is not that he
\nbelittles his office but that he comes across as a supplicant. What is
\nabout our president that propels him to seek others’ approval at every
\nturn? And why can he not pace himself so that something of himself is
\nleft in reserve so that the people later want more?<\/p>\n
Much more importantly, however, the President has become boring because he is way too perfect.<\/p>\n
Last week I convened the first International Conference on Jewish
\nValues. It featured most of Judaism’s foremost living personalities,
\nincluding Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, Michael Steinhardt, Joseph Telushkin,
\nRichard Joel, Alan Dershowitz, and Dennis Prager (full video of the
\nentire conference is available at Shmuley.com). The last, and most
\nimportant, of the seven universal Jewish values we focused on was
\nstruggle.<\/p>\n
Where most of the world believes in perfection, Jews believe in
\nstruggle. Jesus was perfect, as was Muhammad. Any insinuation as to
\nJesus even getting lonely and requiring the love of a woman, as Dan
\nBrown suggested in The Da Vinci Code, would greatly offend the
\nsensibilities of Christian brothers and sisters. And an insinuation
\nthat Muhamad had any faults – even if the suggestion is made in a
\nhumorous cartoon – can and has let to riots in cities around the world.<\/p>\n
But it’s not just religions that make the mistake of promoting
\nperfection. I remember as a young American boy being taught that George
\nWashington never told a lie and that Abraham Lincoln walked miles to
\nreturn a single penny.<\/p>\n
But the Jewish Bible has not a single perfect person. All are
\nflawed. Abraham demonstrates a lack of faith, Jacob favors a child, and
\nMoses often complains and then refuses to perfectly carry out G-d’s
\ninstructions for which he is denied entry into the promised land.
\nDavid, the father of the Messiah, is so riddled with flaws that he must
\nlive through the open rebellion of his beloved Absalom. So if these
\npeople were so imperfect, why do we look up to them as heroes?<\/p>\n
The answer, of course, is that Judaism has no time for perfection.
\nPerfect people are monolithic, predictable, often judgmental, and,
\nworst of all, boring. That’s the main reason why Americans did not
\ndevelop a populist passion for books about the founding fathers until
\nabout twenty years ago when authors finally starting writing the truth
\nabout how complex and flawed these men who had been sold to us as
\nstatues actually were. Joseph Ellis wrote American Sphinx and shared
\nwith us, in vivid detail, the fact of Jefferson’s slaveholding and his
\nsexual relationship with Sally Hemmings. In His Excellency Ellis
\nreveals George Washington’s uncompromising ambition for wealth and
\nsocial status. And in Lincoln’s Melancholy Joshua Wolf Shenk reveals
\nthe great president as a man so suicidal that his friends often feared
\nleaving him unattended.<\/p>\n
So why do we revere these men if they were less than perfect?
\nBecause the truly righteous man is not he who never sins but rather he
\nwho, amid a predilection to narcissism and selfishness, battles his
\nnature to live a virtuous life. The truly great man is not he who slays
\ndragons but he who battles his inner demons, he who struggles with
\nhimself to improve and ennoble his character<\/p>\n
Israel means ‘he who wrestles with G-d.’ It was the name of Jacob
\nwho wrestled with a brother who sought to kill him and a father-in-law
\nwho sought to enslave him. Most of all, he wrestled with an angel, a
\nsymbol of his earthly and G-dly nature locked in battle for ascendancy.<\/p>\n
I would personally choose the man who has wrestled and struggled any
\nday over the trust-fund baby who has never struggled. Those whom have
\nbeen given gifts often lack empathy and risk becoming conventional and
\nuni-dimensional.<\/p>\n
Which brings us back to Barack Obama, a man was raised without a
\nfather who had to wrestle with major challenges in order to succeed. So
\nwhy does he insist on coming across as perfect? Why will he not leave
\nthe teleprompter and give an off-the-cuff speech where he can showcase
\nhis humanity? Why does he take such long pauses in responding to all
\nquestions to ensure that only perfection stems from his lips? And why
\nis everything in this White House a perfectly calibrated photo-op?<\/p>\n
Sure, during the campaign America may have wanted a Messiah figure.
\nThey saw messy wars and a collapsing economy and wanted a savior. But
\nas President they want someone real, someone who struggles like them.<\/p>\n
Even in the worst moments of the Monica Lewinsky scandal President
\nClinton’s poll numbers never dipped below fifty percent. Most Americans
\nsaw a flawed man and identified with his lack of perfection.<\/p>\n
Barack Obama is far more disciplined for such unfortunate choices
\nand I respect him for it. But don’t be afraid to show us Mr. President
\nthat, as in the title of George Stephanopoulos’ book about President
\nClinton, that you also are All Too Human.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n