Bro-mance with Barack or not, he must govern

He has the best smile this side of Tom Cruise. But I’m betting President Barack Obama doesn’t jump up and down on Oprah’s couch, profess his love for Katie Holmes and then berate Brooke Shields for taking antidepressants.
And no, Obama is not a Scientologist. And don’t even start with this right-wing-radio crap that his election was illegal because he’s not a U.S. citizen. How warped are you to believe that? So warped that Bill O’Reilly has called you out as warped.
Obama’s honeymoon as president will end soon, and his rock-star status will fade. He’ll be judged by how well he governs. But know this: The man is a thinker. He can talk, too. But he thinks first.
I haven’t done enough homework on Obama’s health care reform plan to know whether I like it. But I agree that reform is needed. Premiums and co-pays are skyrocketing, especially compared to wages. HMOs are strangling us in red tape. Bean counters have replaced doctors as our health advisers.
I want to see fewer erectile dysfunction ads on television and more uninsured Americans afforded affordable health care. That’s what industrialized nations do.
I’m not advocating a single-payer system or universal care or a government-run health program. Just treat the sick, help us to avoid getting sick and reward us for lifestyle choices that help keep us well.
Meanwhile, I’ve learned two new terms in the past few days from my crackerjack staff: “Man crush” and “bro-mance.” I’ll use them in a sentence: “Todd, you have a man crush on our president; it’s a real budding bro-mance.”
Thank you, City Editor Susan Cameron, for educating me.
Not true, by the way, although I’ll concede that whenever the president spoke during our 15-minute editorial board meeting Wednesday, I thought I heard the late Barry White singing in the background. (Sometimes when I’m canoeing in wilderness areas, I hear dueling banjos. I’m not the only one who hears this, right?)
Here’s what I told Ms. Cameron: “Had you been there, you would have swooned. I didn’t swoon. I just heard Barry White singing.”
A special shoutout goes to Congressman Rick Boucher, whose friendship with Obama made possible our editorial board meeting with, in Obama’s words, Rick’s hometown paper. Just to be clear, though, I informed Mr. Boucher directly that if he is to get our endorsement in 2010, he’ll have to earn it.
As for Obama, suffice it to say he’s probably the first sitting president to be interviewed by the Herald Courier’s editorial board, which consists of me, Publisher Carl Esposito and Opinion Page Editor Suzanne Tate.
We were promised 10 minutes and not a second more, but luckily we started our interview by telling the president we had about six questions we wanted him to answer on health care and cap-and-trade energy legislation. After the third question, a White House press aide said this will be your final question.
Obama overruled her and said he would get them all. Fourteen minutes and 10 seconds later, we were escorted to a side room with a blue curtain and a pair of flags. It was our official photo op with the president.
I think the photo is worth sharing with you readers.
Meanwhile, we’ll be monitoring our president’s policies and particularly their effects on our region. Man crush or not, we will hold him accountable and call him out when he deserves it.
Any differences we have with Obama will be based on his policies – unlike the cheap shots taken by a few locals.
One anonymous coward on our Web site, TriCities.com, made a watermelon joke. We promptly removed it from our online story announcing Obama’s visit to the Kroger store. A newspaper reader concluded his letter in Saturday’s edition with this highly offensive passage; we left it in the paper because while it blurred the taste lines, it did not cross those lines. And we believed the letter-writer outed himself as a racist in the process.
“[Obama] will just be another out-of-work Negro,” in 2012, he wrote.
Regardless of your politics, it is impossible to deny that Obama has a set of challenges no president has ever encountered: Two wars combined with the worst recession in four generations and a segment of the population that hates him based on the color of his skin.
We can take solace in this fact, however: Obama will never embarrass us abroad as his predecessor was wont to do.

J. Todd Foster is managing editor of the Bristol Herald Courier and can be reached at (276) 645-2513. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jtoddbhc