Okay, I admit it. Depression can tough. It's easy to be gloomy, on occasion, for any number of reasons. I am certainly there currently. But even in the depths of a dark month, Mr. Obama can rouse me to smile.
If anything should lift the spirits, it should be seeing President Obama at his best, which he clearly was at the University of Nebraska yesterday. It was the Obama so many of us came to love: Utterly reasonable, charming, persuasive and passionate, cutting through the muck coming from the Donald et al.
And funny. Commenting on Mr. Trump's assertion that America is in decline and ISIS is winning, Mr. Obama said, "You know there's a word for that and it begins with a 'B.'" Everyone laughs. And without missing a beat, he adds: "Baloney."
Everyone laughed, except that coed standing just off Mr. Obama's right shoulder.
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| She's the one in the gray. The one in the plaid smiled later. |
They array a whole panoply of faces, people standing in the bleachers behind the President, carefully chosen, no doubt, to have as many different types of faces, Black, White, Asian, in determinant, male, female. So they have two White girls, one in front of the other. And one of them in particular, does not smile. She looks like she just broke up with her sweetheart. Two rows behind her a White girl, and the Black girl next to her are laughing at all the right times, as are all the boys to Mr. Obama's left.
But this one girl is unmoved.
And Mr. Obama is in rare form. He repeats the remarks he made at the State of the Union about what happened in 1956 when the Russians launched the Sputnik, pointing upward, skyward, and saying, "We did not deny the Sputnik was up there. We did not say, oh, that's just something that'll pass." General laughter.
The girl behind him remains unmoved. Not even a glimmer of a smile.
Don't they screen these people?
Mr. Obama observes that when he said the United States was still the strongest nation on earth and had the best military at the SOTU, most people, no matter which party, could agree with that, but when he looked around the room some people refrained from applauding. "Now, what could they have been thinking? How controversial was that?" Of course, we all know why the Republicans didn't applaud--it contradicts their contention that we are weaker under Obama. But the crowed at the field house at U. Nebraska laughs and cheers.
Except for the dispirited waif off his right shoulder.
Get that girl some Prozac. Or maybe, slap her. Wake her up: there are good things in life still, no matter what her problems. Obama is still President.
He mentions that next year at this time, the world will still have problems and we'll still have to move forward and there will be solutions, and we'll need people to solve those problems and someone calls out, "Run again!" And he laughs and everyone (except you know who) laughs. And he says, even if the Constitution did not forbid that, Michelle would kill him. More laughter.
Not from the somber one.
There is something about depression which can be infectious. I turned on CNN feeling as bleak and down and dreary as I have in very long time, but Mr. Obama lifted me up, until I noticed the glum one behind him, and then I couldn't stop watching her.
Oh, well. It's just January. There should be time.
I remain convinced that if Barak Obama were a white, republican, wing nut, the reaction of many in congress and, at the University of Nebraska, would be quite different.
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