�Bring Obama �Home� �?� Last I heard, President Obama and his family were quite comfortably ensconced in public housing at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.�� �Bring Obama �Home�� certainly cannot refer to some experience that it is imagined President Obama shares with the majority of black Americans.�� Few black Americans grow up in Indonesia; fewer still have white relatives who can run interference for them in an America where race is too often determinative of what opportunities will be available to you.� To be generous, Pres. Obama is part of the black community by choice; to be realistic President Obama is part of the black community because white America gives him no choice (he is as much white as he is black; does anyone think he could mark �White� on his passport?).� So I�m not sure what �Home� the question refers to.� It�s like when I go into a deli, and see a sign that says �Homemade�, I always wonder whose home?� How do I know that I would like that person, or their culinary habits?�

Politically, if we didn�t know before, we certainly know now, Pres. Obama�s� �Home� is neither Right nor Left, but somewhere in the Center.�� As Bill Fletcher pointed out, �Obama was knowable in 2008� but people heard what they wanted to hear, and saw what they wanted to see.� Maybe part of the discontent is a disconnect between the visual Obama, and the actual Obama.� Stereotype says that black men are street brawlers, angry fighters, not master strategists, champion chess players (apology to Maurice Ashley).� Invariably, Obama criticism contains the word �fight�, as in, why didn�t he fight for this, or fight for that?� My question is what do we want?� A President who wages symbolic, futile fights against an intransigent foe, using resources better conserved for another day, wasting his credibility on defeat after defeat, until he begins to look ineffectual?� Or a President who uses his brain to figure out which battles are winnable, which battles can be sacrificed on the way to winning the war, and who outsmarts,�outmaneuvers his opponents while incurring as few political casualties as possible for the home team?� Dismayingly, the Left seems to be as captured by the stereotype as the Right, seething because Obama doesn�t bare his teeth, pound his chest, flash his fists, and spit fire in battles that actually would be better left for another day when he�s holding a stronger hand.� Apparently, unable to envision an intellectual president, a nuanced president, a sophisticated political savant in a black body, perhaps the Left wishes to return to the grand ole days when a cowboy president was at home on the range in the White House.

Yeah, I am frustrated by what the Obama administration has failed to do:� Stop the war in Afghanistan, close Guantanamo, no public option, pass the DREAM Act, Card Check, and basically re-distribute the wealth in this nation.� But let�s be fair, and give the man props for the things that he has done that have/will improve our lives in substantial, but not flashy, ways� :� Justice Sotomayor , Lily Ledbetter Act, Cash for Clunkers, First Time Homebuyer�s Credit, Credit Card Accountability Act, payroll tax cut, extending� the Bush tax cuts in exchange for an extension of unemployment benefits for the 99ers (I didn�t hear Barbara Lee, or Bernie Sanders offer the 99ers a place to stay when their unemployment checks run out), the Affordable Care Act, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.� And, most recently, masterfully exposing Republican unwillingness to contribute �one red cent� (Pelosi) to the shared sacrifice necessary to get our nation�s fiscal home in order.����

There�s something malodorous about some of the Obama criticism.�� Tincture of disbelief (if I�d known it was possible for a black man to become president, I�d have done it) mixed with a jealousy (how come I�m not in his inner circle?) that stinks up cyberspace.�� Some of the over-the-top, visceral Obama condemnation seems to serve as a shield, a variation of the relationship dance where one partner thinks �I�m going to hurt him/her before he/she hurts me (because I know she/he will)�.� Anticipating betrayal, some Obama critics appear to be more interested in being able to say, �I told you so.� I�m not surprised or hurt.� He didn�t fool me.�� than they are in providing a useful distillation of Obama�s policies, positive, and negative.�

In moments of frustration, when I have failed to remember, as Jamala Rogers pointed out, that President Obama is not a leftist, and never claimed to be, I have railed against Obama too, even though I voted for Ralph Nader.� However, because of Obama, I scrutinize the political machinations in D.C. as never before, and it now seems to me, that for all the Left�s huffing and puffing, a reality check says that a lone wolf like Nader or Cynthia Mckinney would have been stalemated at best, crushed at worse, had either won the presidency.� Principle alone is not enough to stand on when facing a Republican juggernaut determined to enslave or imprison everyone except the filthy rich.� This cabal desires nothing less than a disposable proletariat that will work hard, and die quickly and unobtrusively (skip the hospital, go straight to the cemetery) when our �productivity� wanes.� Only someone with his own political apparatus, someone who can out-think, out-strategize Republicans, someone who is Harvard-polished on the outside, ghetto-fearless on the inside, has any hope of saving himself, and possibly this nation.�

Idealist that I am, I want BlackCommentator to be fair and balanced in its critique of this President, and not expect him to be something he never was, and never will be.� Some of the criticism on BlackCommentator leads me to believe that Barack Obama is home alone, lacking support, or constructive criticism, from the people who need him most.

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BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator Barbara Maddox is a BC reader and subscriber who resides in New York City. Click here to contact Ms. Maddox.