OBAMA IS NOT YET A MAJOR LEAGUER: THE PRESIDENT AFTER A YEAR IN OFFICE -- HE STILL CAN'T HIT THE CURVE BALL!

OBAMA IS NOT YET A MAJOR LEAGUER: THE PRESIDENT AFTER A YEAR IN OFFICE -- HE STILL CAN’T HIT THE CURVE BALL!

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© January 28, 2010


* * *

When I was a boy living IN THE SHADOW OF THE COURTHOUSE (2003), also the name of one of my books, I had a friend, Bobby Witt, who was quite a baseball player and used the metaphor of baseball to explain things to me.

“Rube,” he would say which was my sobriquet, “you are a thinker who can’t hit the curve ball.” I had confessed to him one day that my dying father had said of his four children I was the one he worried most about, me being so different than he was.

“Your dad is talking about your weakness. You can’t hit the curve ball. He has scouted your weakness living with you all these years, and sees people throwing curve balls at you and you striking out again and again.

“If you want to make the majors, you’ll have to hit the curve ball. You want to be a writer. Well, readers are your curve ball. You love big words; big ideas and can throw them around with ease. People aren’t interested in big words or big ideas. People want to be entertained, to forget, not be reminded. I’m not sure you understand that.

“You have to cut down your swing, speed up your bat, not sit on your back leg, and bail out on the curve. Rube, you don’t get it. Readers want to escape thinking. They want to feel smart without being smart. Big ideas big thoughts will tank you every time.”

* * *

I was thinking about this advice I had from my best friend more than a half century ago as I attempted to assess President Barak Obama’s first year in office. He can’t hit the curve ball. He is doing everything that Bobby advised me not to do, and he is tanking. It is sad to say that it appears he doesn’t get it.

You can make the majors if you aren’t fast, have a poor arm and are a so-so fielder as long as you can hit the curve ball.

The curve ball is the metaphor for leadership.

Leadership is what Andrew Jackson showed.

Leadership is what Abraham Lincoln showed.

Leadership is what Franklin Delano Roosevelt showed. But presidents since, including John F. Kennedy, looked pretty at the plate but couldn’t hit the curve ball, and the United States of America has suffered for it, and continues to tank so badly against the opposition.

It is not too late for President Obama to learn how to hit the curve ball, but it means he can no longer hide behind soothing rhetoric, a facile mind, and looking good.

Jackson, Lincoln and Roosevelt were ugly by standards of our celebrity culture, and didn't look all that good at the plate, but they could sure hit the curve ball!

* * *