Obama, Anti-Americanism and Torture

I'm reminding myself right now that its been a little over 100 days and this President has done much to raise confidence here at home and abroad, he is active, and he is working towards keeping many of the promises he made during his historic campaign. For that he is going to get the benefit of the doubt, at least from me. I've begun to think that we Americans are unable to comprehend what it is like to have a President that shows up to work and actually tries to get things done. Nixon's resignation, Reagan's 2nd term in lala land, Bill's inability to keep his pants on and GWB have lowered the standard for American President so far that we as a country are having a really hard time believing this guy might actually be the real deal. It's the old screw me twice adage, we can't possibly be dumb enough to trust our President. And then there's the nasty bits. What is our fascination with seeing the worst in human nature? We are a society clinging and clamoring for the lowest common denominator. Our movies, music, games and television have become increasingly more gratuitously sexual and violent, our gossip and news media (I say news very lightly) aimed more at character destruction in 30 second sound bytes than enlightenment and education of the people. We spend more time fighting over why we are different socially than we do celebrating our similarities and we seem happy to do it! I agree that releasing the torture pictures would shut the Cheney and Limbaugh crowd up and in doing so would help cleanse America of their stink and lies and dishonor. I had a hard time reading the memos, I can only imagine how terrible the actual photos are. But, I agree with Obama in that those photos will also be used to fan the flames of anti-Americanism in the Arab world. It would be just the break our enemies are looking for as all indications point to anti-American sentiment decreasing drastically in recent months due to the calculated approach of President Obama. Maybe in the end I'll feel screwed. Perhaps I'm being naive and in the end he he will be just another President who let me down. Right now though, I don't think so.