Are We Ready for a Father Figure President?

Now, we’ve said some dumb stuff in our time. Many of of the comments occurred in the 24-hour Burger King while an undergrad in Evanston, Ill. after a night at the Keg. Another fair percentage were directed at women–the biggest and most recent one being, "Will you marry me?"

But we digress. Wednesday afternoon, while traveling between Washington and New York, reporters on the Obama airplane were suddenly sent scrambling over comments the one-time Civil Rights icon-turned-whatever-he’s-considered-now made on that bastion of Liberal reportage Fox News.

“See Barack been, um, talking down to black people on this faith based," Jackson said. "I wanna cut his nuts off. Barack … he’s talking down to black people.”

Of course Jackson apologized. And while we can chalk this up to the latest in a series of gaffes by Jackson in recent years, it speaks directly to the new kind of power Obama has generated and how he plans on using it. On Father’s Day last month in a church in Chicago not far from his home, Obama gave a speech that was nearly transcendent as he tried to take on the role of father figure in American politics. He chastised young black men for leaving their responsibilities as parents and called, no, demanded more accountability from the home.

We no longer look to our political figures as father figures. As I wrote when Obama gave his speech, the last two presidents have seemed more like wacky older brothers than people to follow as moral exemplars, as dads. What Obama said and what he’s done since that day in June is to move beyond that, to try to become a figure like Franklin Roosevelt, both able to inspire a country and tell it what it needs to do in its most desperate hour.

But that mantle comes with consequences. Obama, as we saw through Jackson’s comments, has set himself up as someone who will meet resistance when he lectures us on our civic responsibilities and moral obligations. Like our real fathers, we sometimes don’t want to hear what people who aspire to being political father figures have to say. During the next several months we will learn whether we’re really ready for such a person or if we’re more comfortable as lone actors, angry at those who dare to suggest another way.