PrintJanuary 19, 2009
Can Obama land a damaged plane?
The Obama royal crowning ceremony from a Higher Spirit is reducing normally sane folks to slobbering fools. But what if they're slobbering fools already?
Boston Herald columnist Margery Eagan manages to do the nearly impossible--diminish US Airways pilot Chesley B. Sullenberger III's heroic feat of landing a dead engine plane safely in the Hudson River by comparing it to The Office of President Elect Obama's feat of well, getting elected.
America luxuriated Friday in the nerves-of-steel performance of US Airways pilot Chesley B. Sullenberger III because it was reassuring to finally see a high-stakes performer not just do the job, but dazzle us.
Incompetence is too much with us of late.
America is either prudently optimistic or downright giddy over Barack Obama for the same reason we swooned for Chesley. Barack may be fooling us, though he did look jubilant riding to Washington yesterday on a train caboose bedecked in red, white and blue. He radiated youth and vigor. He always radiates competence, calm, grace under pressure, preternatural self-confidence.
I'd quote more but it might make you 'frow up. Or smash your computer.
Ms. Eagan, do you see the high stakes nerves of steel competence in the average American service(wo)man in Iraq? Teachers out of the limelight performing dazzling feats of education with students neglected by their young parents? Nerves of steel performance by medical personnel daily, ensuring higher quality and longer lives? Have police and firefighting heroism become so routine that you are bored?
Crawl out of your Boston media womb if you can and go around the country. You'll see high stakes performances done with competence and grace by the seemingly most routine folks. And then maybe you'll learn some competence yourself.
