Obama's Daemon

I am a huge fan of the Philip Pullman series, "His Dark Materials," a three part fantasy series that is akin to the Harry Potter series on steroids. One key part of the story is the relationship between a person and his/her daemon. The daemon is like an externalized part of self and takes the form of an animal. During childhood, the daemon shape shifts depending on the mood of the child. During puberty, the daemon takes one shape.

I am reminded of this part of the story when I read about the relationship between Rahm Emmanuel and Obama. One is cool and collected, the other a kind of tazmanian devil whirling around in a cloud of profanity and influence. What Obama cannot express, it seems, Emmanuel can (including the word "fuck"). What Obama cannot do (cozy up in the carriage with any person of power and wealth at any time and clop down the road whatever direction he or she decides to take him) Emmanuel can't seem to help but do. And Obama and Emmanuel seem from the news and newspaper reports to be connected with a kind of psychic tether of influence.

The last weeks have made it clear, Obama' administration is in its childhood. I suspect his daemon, in the form of the preternaturally large-eyed, tiny framed Emmanuel, seems to be everywhere in the engineering of this monster mess of health care reform. I'm reliving parts of the campaign through Richard Wolffe's book "Renegade" and am reminded of how clear the Democrats, including Obama, made it that they would radically reform health care if put into office.

What we've gotten instead is a president seemingly allowing his daemon to jerk him around by that tether. Meanwhile, the entire health care issue has run amock. The constant shifting forms of the health care "reform" being put forward by the democrats is, at this point, indecipherable. This is not what we voted for, this is not what we need, and these half-assed measures being suggested by the president will not restore the integrity of a wealthy, powerful, and utterly corrupt government.

Keep this in mind, Americans are the MOST productive workers on Earth, according to a U.N. report (2007), and we have millions of individuals and families underinsured or uninsured. Millions of families must make that call in the middle of the night, "Do we bring our sick child to the hospital tonight and risk loosing the house for the bills, or do we hold off and hope for the best?" Some of the people I love most in this world have made that call.

We need an adult in office capable of putting bullies in their place, looking after those in need, and STAYING HIS GROUND when that ground is unequivocally solid. Children, women, men, workers, and the unemployed, all human beings deserve to have access to medical care. The greed of the few and the powerful have the daemon's ear, it seems. And apparently our child president can't make up his mind about what form those who influence him will take.