Mick Clifford: What Obama didn’t say in Dublin spoke loudest
An Evening With President Barack Obama In Conversation with Fintan O'Toole at the 3Arena. Picture: Ray Keogh
Barack Obama arrived on stage in his trademark loping stride, like a farmer pacing land. The wave was familiar too. We’ve seen it often since he first came to prominence as a young senator, on election night in 2008, and throughout his presidency.
His arrival at the 3Arena in Dublin on Friday drew a standing ovation that felt like a yearning. The world is upside down, and here is somebody who may not be able to straighten it out, but at least could offer hope. A faith healer for the age of Trump.
The 7,500-seat arena was full, mostly occupied by the grey brigade “wintering well.” Ticket prices started at €25, but it remains unclear how many were available at that rate because they disappeared in seconds.
After that, the minimum price was €140, but some premium tickets with added extras reportedly sold for up to €2,000. At least those in the cheap seats could take comfort in knowing the event might be worth the price of a good therapy session.
Fintan O’Toole, the evening’s interviewer, got straight to business. He focused on history’s lessons and soon the discussion turned to the savagery in the Middle East.
“Gaza,” Obama said, “is an example of the prison of the past.” He outlined the competing and very real historic grievances on both sides.
“The starting point is to acknowledge history,” he said, offering what on this side of the Atlantic might be considered the most palatable interpretation from middle America. He was unequivocal about the current slaughter.
O’Toole asked how we got here, and Obama gave a concise history of liberal democracy’s evolution — from World War II through the Cold War, globalization, and the fallout that left many disillusioned. There was nothing particularly new in his account, but it’s how he tells it: distilling complex systems and ideas into a version that goes down easily, leaving an aftertaste of more.
Of course, hanging over everything was He Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken. At no point in the 90-minute interview did that person’s name cross Obama’s lips. The closest was O’Toole’s reference to “the T word.”
Beyond that, it was all what wasn’t said. Obama spoke about authoritarian rule in “Hungary, Turkey and now it’s being mimicked in other places”. (And where might that be?)
Recalling an oil spill during his presidency, he referenced “the Gulf of Mexico,” pausing for a beat to underline that he would not use T’s rebranded “Gulf of America.” He warned, “People who are oppressors will go after storytellers, comics and artists”. Another pause. Jimmy Kimmel anybody? And on it went in that vein.
The strategy nodded to the once-quaint tradition of former presidents avoiding criticism of incumbents, especially abroad. On another level, it worked perfectly — symbolically denying oxygen to a megalomaniac who can’t open his mouth without self-praise. Still, despite Obama’s stirring rhetoric, a heaviness from the outside world lingered over the arena.
Eleven months ago, a week before last November’s US presidential election, the was in Philadelphia’s Temple University arena, where 10,000 adoring supporters practically sat at Obama’s feet during a rally for Kamala Harris.
He wore no jacket, his white shirt sleeves rolled up for work.
The audience was bulling the fight ahead, confident the approaching darkness could be pushed back. Obama lifted them to new heights. That night, he had no hesitation in plainly calling out Harris’ opponent.
“Here’s a man, a 78-year-old billionaire, who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down that golden escalator nine years ago. He’s still tweeting at all times of night, all cats. When he’s not complaining he’s trying to sell you stuff. He wants to sell you a Swiss watch, $100,000, but they can’t find where exactly in Switzerland it is actually made. He wants to sell you a Trump bible.”
That was then. The battle was lost. The T word won, and now rules rather than governs. Could Obama, when he was First Citizen, have done more to ward off the storm? O’Toole asked.
“I grapple with that, did I say enough,” he replied. “Maybe if I called it out more clearly some people and their politics, people might have been forewarned. It’s a tough balance and I haven’t figured it out yet.”
In the end, O’Toole invoked Martin Luther King’s dictum that “the long arc of history bends towards justice.” Does Obama still believe that?
“I’d emphasise the long point,” he quipped, adding that everyone has a role in preserving and nourishing democracy.
“It does not bend by itself,” he said of the long arc. “We grab it and pull it towards justice.”
He’s no Messiah, this former president who broke new ground but perhaps took his eye off the ball. Neither, unlike the current incumbent, would he claim to be. Still, he is a tonic in dangerous times, and for one evening, maybe that was enough.
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