If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
I don't know if Rudyard Kipling would had lent his support to President Obama. All I know is that the man seems to be operating on a version of the above -- keeping his head cool while letting everyone, from the GOP and their Tea Party German Shepherds to disappointed black folk and angry liberal supporters, lose their fucking minds. It must be the calm, collected, conciliatory and forgiving manner in which he carries himself and conducts business. He's a palm tree bent against the hurricane winds of angry voters and low approval ratings. Some say he bends a bit too far. Others are worried he's already snapped or been uprooted.
Even early into his administration, the GOP and other right-wingers felt they had the unadulterated right to push Obama around and the more they pushed him around, the farther he bent. It's what a palm tree does to keep itself from being uprooted during a storm. Americans like sitting under the shade of a palm tree, but they don't exactly respect its strength or resilience. Obama's supporters want him to stand tall like a sturdy oak. Sure, an oak doesn't take shit from anybody, but living in the tornado-friendly Deep South, I've seen what happens to oak trees when a nasty storm strikes, and the end results aren't pretty.
Not saying that Obama should be a pushover, but the ongoing meme about Obama somehow being a wimp or a weakling doesn't deserve the 15 minutes it's being given. On the other hand, people are seriously worried about his seeming reluctance to fight for policies that genuinely give Americans a fighting chance to land back on their feet. It's all well and good to be a palm tree in a hurricane, but the people want to see a bit of that sturdy oak in Obama, too.
