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The weight of expectation

Posted by putsimply on 19th January 2009

This weekend the Obama bandwagon began its roll into Washington DC and it is fascinating to watch from the European sidelines.

How different from our changes in prime minister.  Lose the election and you are out in 24 hours with the new incumbent taking over No. 10 while the beds are still warm. In the US the media hype has been frantically building up since the win in November to an explosion of patriotic pride this week.  I was interested to read that Barack Obama’s daughter Malia said to him at a pre-inaugural visit to the Lincoln Memorial,  ‘First African-American president? Better be good.

I cannot imagine what it must be like to have the weight of expectation on your shoulders that he has.  The world is expecting him to deliver and the press is watching his every move.  I am not sure the world even knows what it is expecting but it is certainly looking for dramatic changes and the media will be fast to react if he does not deliver.

It is always amusing to watch those jumping on a new President’s bandwagon and, with the Irish lobby so strong in the US, the release of the song ‘There’s no-one as Irish as Barack Obama’.  Apparently a distant ancestor was a wigmaker from the village of Moneygall.

I just hope he has time to enjoy the next few days because it is going to get tough after that.

putsimply