Barack to the future
up, cheesin’ and grinnin’; our new Prime Minister gets to touch the hem of his garment; he pals up with John Key to rebuff any suggestions of fake friendships; he uses a ‘‘moderated conversation’’ hosted by a NZ-US links-fostering outfit to quote inspirationally and promotionally from his previous, or upcoming books; he talks approvingly about the rise of talented and moral leaders throughout society being a good and important thing (thereby fearlessly confronting all those arguments that it isn’t); then maybe spots a brown kiwi at a Bay of Islands resort – sorry, a luxury Bay of Islands resort – throws some appreciative comments about nationwide prettinesses for his millions of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram followers; then swans off to Australia to be fawned over afresh.
And it’s always possible that that’s all it will amount to. But maybe not. He might draw on that combination of massive insider knowledge and careworn experience to find something of nutrition to say to Jacinda Ardern privately, or the nation publicly, or both. Messages that may carry cautions as well as encouragements. Not just how he achieved what he did, but where and how he’s screwed up.
So stark, so dismal, has been the contrast between the Obama and Trump presidencies that the twice-elected Democrat could be in a position to offer ideas, and answer questions, that help our country forge its own path successfully, while maintaining – deservedly, even – what we fancy to be our honest-broker status internationally.
To harbour hopes, let alone optimism, for such things is to invite the criticism of naivete and being blinded by a brand of stardust that has long since been found out. Yet what the Trump administration has been dispensing in all directions hasn’t been stardust. More like the substance that’s idiomatically spread not by the wave of a fairy’s wand, but by hitting a fan.
Obama has his critics, not all of whom are trogladytic Trumpites. But he’s a man whose aspirations aren’t shabby, whose methodologies aren’t disgraceful, whose entire administration wasn’t ignoble. If you wouldn’t have him as a dinner guest or to a barbecue, and hear what he has to say, then your standards might be just a tad high.