The Brutal Art of Making Change

It's a curious confluence I'm in now, reading both of Barack Obama's books while witnessing the unfolding tension surrounding the influence-peddling attempts by Rod Blagojevich's office.

As I observe the mounting media pressure on Obama's team to answer questions about their internal probe into communications with Blagojevich's office, as I watch the Republicans slavering at the chance to do the man in before he's even been sworn in, it is with some special irony that I read his words and take in his vision for how politicians should behave in public life:

"Maybe the critics are right. Maybe there's no escaping our great political divide, an endless clash of armies, and any attempts to alter it are futile. Or maybe the trivialization of politics has reached a point of no return, so that most people see it as just one more diversion, a sport...But I don't think so."

--The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

I am one of the ordinary citizens of whom Obama so passionately speaks, a woman like many others "possessed of the same virtues and vices, insecurities and long-buried injuries, as the rest of us." (And Obama was actually speaking of outgoing President George Bush there. So I guess I have to make common cause even with W). And like the citizens he describes, I too have been disaffected with the political process for many, many years. I remember being interested in Bill Clinton and happy that he won, but I do not remember ever approaching the radio or TV or newspapers with an eagerness I previously reserved only for a favorite book or series, as I do now.

Because I care what happens next, that's why. Enough to actually do something about it myself, even.

Except that I can't, really, in this instance. I can only tune in and watch the news unfold and hope the incoming Administration is as whistle-clean as it says it is, that there wasn't a single goof or lapse of judgment on the part of the 450 staffers in charge of the transition, most of all the guys at the top.

I have faith that this is true, but as I watch the dust roil around the allegations I fear that we still live in a Washington where the truth matters less than the show.