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Assessing Obama One Year Later

Pulitzer-prize winning columnist Eugene Robinson says the President has mostly held up his end of the bargain.

What Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson remembers most about Election Night 2008 was calling his ailing father to tell him that Barack Obama had been elected president. As a commentator for MSNBC, Robinson heard through his earpiece that the network was about to call the race for the Illinois Senator at 11 p.m. Eastern time.

“I never thought in my life that I’d be able to make that phone call,” he told an audience of around 800 at the Hammerschmidt Memorial Chapel on Oct. 29.

Robinson, an African-American who grew up in Orangeburg, South Carolina at the end of segregation, recalled that in 1968, students at the state university in town protested segregation at a local bowling alley. Robinson remembers watching  the drama unfold from the window of his home—and his father warning him urgently to lay low and not be visible. The protest turned into a three-day riot; police opened fire and killed three of the protestors.

Forty years later, Robinson spent election night offering commentary for MSNBC at its Rockefeller Center studio and writing his column there the next day for The Post. He was so overcome with emotion as he wrote the column that tears streamed down his face. He was hauled back for continual makeup retouches before they would allow him back on the air. (Click here to read that column, Morning in America, that was published in The Washington Post on Nov. 6.)

Robinson, 55, won a Pulizer Prize earlier this year for his columns on Barack Obama’s historic election. Assessing the president’s performance after less than a year in office, Robinson said Obama “for the most part, has held up his end of the bargain.” He cited progress on the economy, the end of torture as a practice by the U.S. government, largely changing America’s image in the rest of the world and something very near to a health care reform bill. “I would argue that this is a pretty good record for ten months,” he said.

Robinson started following Obama during the primaries. In an interview, Robinson said that his visit to the Iowa caucuses in early January, 2008 enabled him to see what parts of the campaigns of Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards resonated with voters. When Robinson saw the energy and dedication of the Obama staff, he knew that the candidate had to be taken seriously.

As The Washington Post’s South American correspondent from 1988 to 1992 and its London bureau chief from 1992-1994, Robinson said he gained perspective on how Americans relate to the rest of the world. He said that Obama has changed the way the world views America for the better. Still, Robinson says, “I believe I underestimated the importance of a person who looks and sounds so different from the (traditional) image of the President of the United States.” Obama’s foreign policy to date has shown a marked shift from unilateralism to multilateralism, with Obama working hard to engage leaders around the world, he said.

Jennifer R. Boyle, chair of the Elmhurst political science department who attended the lecture, agreed that Obama’s multilateral approach has been beneficial. Although it is early in the administration, she’s noticed that Obama echoes the philosophy of Reinhold Niebuhr, who was an Elmhurst College alumnus and whose work as a Protestant theologian focused on the persistent presence of evil in human affairs. He warned against the tendency toward sinful pride, self-righteous crusades and claims of political or religious perfection. Obama “is looking at U.S. interests and broader interests as well,” Boyle said. “I think that is the Obama doctrine.” Boyle says that multilateralism seems to be Obama’s domestic policy, too, as his administration has worked to balance power between the executive and legislative branches and to engage people throughout the government.

Elmhurst College students, many of whom voted for the first time last year, were excited to hear Robinson’s discussion of the election. Jessica Sullivan, ’10, an English and Theatre Arts major, who founded the Elmhurst chapter of the NAACP, introduced Robinson. She had volunteered with the Obama campaign last year and currently is a student teacher at Proviso East High School. “I’m trying to get students to be emotionally motivated. That’s politics,” she says. She saved her primary-election absentee ballot that listed Obama and Clinton. “I want to show my grandchildren,” she says.

Robinson also reflected that sense of humanity and history in his lecture, noting two things he observed when interviewing Obama recently in the Oval Office. Robinson remarked on the fact that there was a bust of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the office, situated so that Obama would have it in his field of vision when he made decisions at his desk. Robinson also noted with quiet amazement at one point during the same interview that there were only African Americans in the room, including the President, himself and several aides.

Robinson concluded his talk by noting that the grassroots organizing and enthusiasm of the campaign that propelled Obama to victory has dissipated, leaving a void for Republican opponents. “What are we doing to make possible the kind of change that the President is promoting?” he asked. He urged the audience to email the President and Congress, to stay informed, and to make sure that their opinions are known. “Those who believe he is moving too slowly, we need your voices,” he said.

By Ann C. Logue