Barack Obama-the Portrait of a Statesman

I had always thought that our current president was more than just another world leader and that our faith in his ability to handle stressful and tough situations would be rewarded.  I had no idea that it would be shown true in this manner.

According to an article written by Julie Pace of the Associated Press titled Obama says new task force will examine gas prices, President Barack Obama showed me and those who care to look just how cool, calm and collected he really was.  First he did something that I had prayed he would do by allowing the Justice Department to begin checking into this sudden rise in gas prices.  This article stated that he “said Thursday that the Justice Department will try to "root out" cases of fraud or manipulation in oil markets.  "We are going to make sure that no one is taking advantage of the American people for their own short-term gain," Obama said at a town-hall style meeting at a renewable energy plant in Reno, Nev.  The task force will focus some of its investigation on "the role of traders and speculators" in the oil-price surge, Obama said, and will include several Cabinet department officials, federal regulators and the National Association of Attorneys General.

That was the first and the second was how honest he was in addressing the clean energy promise that he had made while campaigning.  The article reports that “Obama told supporters in San Francisco that he was pressing ahead with his agenda in a difficult political environment and that "change turned out to be a lot tougher than expected."  Just the fact that he was honest enough to come clean with supporters is enough for many of us to say thanks for speaking to us like we are adults and not a bunch of uninformed and unintelligent nitwits.  It makes me proud that even though he may not perform as I think he should sometimes, telling me exactly how it is instead of what he thinks I want to hear means just as much.

But the final act was the way he addressed a few protestors who heckled him about Private Bradley Manning and their perceived treatment of him.  The article reports that “Obama was interrupted by a small group among the paying guests who protested the detention of Bradley Manning, an Army private accused of leaking secret documents to the WikiLeaks website.  "We paid our dues, where's our change?" the protesters sang to the president.  "We'll vote for you in 2012, yes that's true. Look at the Republicans — what else can we do?"  Obama paused while security removed some of the protesters, then joked, "That's a nice song. You guys have much better voices than I do."  Many would have probably dismissed them and ignored what they were singing but he didn’t and I believe that he really did hear every word that they said.  The protestors also showed us a side of America that media often misses.  They were allowed to say what they came to say and they left as requested without incident but they also let him know that even though they did not agree with Manning’s treatment, they knew who they needed to trust in 2012.  Disagree with being disagreeable, a true Statesman asked that of us once.