That seems to be what The Washington Post is suggesting in an article this morning:
War and tragedy are putting President Obama through the most wrenching period of his young administration. Visibly thinner, admittedly skipping meals, he is learning every day the challenges of a wartime presidency. Health-care reform, climate-change legislation, the broken economy — all are cerebral exercises compared with the grim responsibility of being the commander in chief.
Two weeks ago, Obama flew to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for a surprise middle-of-the-night salute to the fallen as their bodies were unloaded from a military transport plane. He met with grieving families.
Then, last week, a gunman went on a rampage at Fort Hood, and Obama made his first trip as president to visit wounded troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Tuesday he flew to Texas to speak at the memorial service. More families. More hurt soldiers. More grief.
Wednesday the president laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns and walked the grounds at Arlington National Cemetery, talking to families who were there to visit loved ones who died in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“There are many honors and responsibilities that come with this job. But none is more profound than serving as commander in chief,” Obama said in a speech in the cemetery’s auditorium. He then mentioned the title of commander in chief a second time, and a third (“As long as I am commander in chief . . .”).
Then he returned to the White House, to the Situation Room, for another Afghanistan war council, another session to contemplate sending more young men and women to war.
“It looks to me from the outside that the reality of being a wartime president is beginning to sink in,” said Eliot Cohen, a former Bush official and a military historian at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
And then there’s this from yesterday:
Wednesday, before he left Arlington, Obama paused to read the most powerful texts imaginable, the names on grave markers. He stopped at the grave of Ross McGinnis, a Medal of Honor recipient. Born in Pennsylvania, McGinnis, 19, wound up in Iraq as a machine gunner, 1st Platoon, C Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment. An insurgent threw a hand grenade into his Humvee. He threw his body on it, absorbing the explosion. His four platoon mates survived.
Obama bent over McGinnis’s grave, but the traveling press pool could not tell what the president was doing, much less what he was thinking.
Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that he now has to make a decision that will virtually guarantee that many more men and women will join Specialist McGinnis at Arlington.
November 12th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Frankly, the health and well-being of our populous are more than “cerebral exercises” Mr. Achenbach. We are not mere fodder for intellectual drift.
But back to the theme. The other day I thought I saw some deepened wrinkles, some hints of gray.
Personally, I prefer our Presidents have these well settled before, rather than after attaining office. Knowing how to be smart and knowing how to be wise are very different things.
Obama isn’t contemplating a college debate, a moot court session, or a campaign speech. This is the real world.
I think, what kind of person could have wanted this job with so little experience and limited understanding of what it entails. I worry, maybe excessively, that this fellow could crack under the pressure. Cool demeanors hide what is boiling beneath. Expressive emoters, on the other hand, one knows what is going on with them. Time will tell. For the benefit of us all, please don’t let it take on Soap Opera dimensions.
November 12th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
I suspect he was probably thinking that young Specialist McGinnis accomplished more in his short life than Obama ever will.
November 12th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
And James, I wonder if his predecessor in office ever had the same thought.
Because it’s true of both of them
November 12th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
The more and more I think about it these days the more and more I am beginning to realize that the health care debate that is currently going on is the right fight at the wrong time. While I understand the idea of multi-tasking I also understand that at times you have to focus on a thing and give it your full attention in order to do it right. While Wall Street maybe in recovery, Main Street is still hurting, yet the national discussion seems to have been hijacked by health care reform.