Author: Martha Carol
Team leader Michael Clegg (sophomore) and nine fellow students in the “Obama and the Issues: The Challenge of Change” class hosted a panel-led review of Barack Obama’s presidency last Thursday evening. Clegg arranged for Charles Blow, the visual Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times; Tom Edsall, the political editor of the Huffington Post; Oxy alumnus Patt Morrison ’74, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist; as well as Thalia Gonzalez, a politics professor at Occidental, to sit on the panel. Organizing the panel was one of several final projects students could complete for the Obama and the Issues course.
“Deconstructing Obama,” as the panel was titled, was meant to be a “forum for the Occidental community to hear bipartisan perspectives on President Obama and his first year of presidency,” according to a Deconstructing Obama advertisement.
Panel organizers stated that the discussion may not have achieved bipartisanship, but it did encompass a variety of viewpoints. “I was trying to actually get a conservative on the panel so we could get that perspective as well but I didn’t get that accomplished,” Clegg said, adding that the panelist they did have “said some good things that Barack Obama is doing but they also gave some policies and suggestions of how to make things better.”
Ambassador Derek Shearer, who co-teaches the Obama course and advised the event planners, emphasized that the event brought a diversity of opinions that did not necessarily revolve around the two major political parties. “I think bipartisanship is the wrong word . . . this was meant to be thoughtful and analytical and to stay far away from Fox News screaming and craziness,” he said. “But what we’ve also done is we’ve had during the whole course a variety of speakers.” He explained that the three guest panelists were all in the journalism business and that it was their job to remain objective and critical.
According to other panel planners, there was a range of perspectives within the group of purportedly liberal-leaning panelists.
“To break it down in some not-so-politically-correct terms, we had a black person, we had two women and we had an old white guy [on the panel]. They didn’t all agree all the time, even though they were fairly liberal,” member of the Obama and the Issues class and event organizer Maya Kumar (sophomore) said. “A lot of the speakers [in the Obama and the Issues class] have been very similar – they say they are critiquing [Obama] but there’s a lot of Obama love.”
Preceding the political discussion and debate, a Hawaiian dance number marked the beginning of the event as a tribute to Obama’s childhood in Hawaii. Clegg cited Obama’s connection to Hawaii and his hosting of the first Congressional Luau this summer as the inspiration for the dance performance. “Michelle [Obama] states, ‘You can’t really understand Barack until you understand Hawaii,'” Clegg said.
Following the opening dance, Politics Professor Caroline Heldman, co-teacher of the Obama course with Shearer and panel moderator, explained the purpose of the Obama-centered class.
“The theme of our Obama course is the challenge of change, or more specifically, how President Obama might put his lofty campaign rhetoric into action and with what outcomes. President Obama was inspired to get involved in politics right here at Occidental College. So this is a very fitting way to honor him slash deconstruct him,” she said.
Within their opening speeches and later during the discussion, panelists addressed hot topics ranging from international relations to health care policy to Guantanamo Bay. “It turned out to be a reflection on how the American public is reacting to [Obama’s] Presidency,” event organizer Jessie Durrett (first-year) said. “Less about his policies and more about how are people looking at it. Like how the Tea Party movement is almost a reaction specifically to his administration.”
Deconstructing Obama also acted as a venue to display other student group projects from the Obama and the Issues course. Students from the course each selected a final project to organize or create by the end of the semester. Projects included Obama playing cards, Obama posters, a collection of speeches by Obama, Obama monopoly boards and an Obama family tree set up in the lobby that connected the current president’s lineage to such notable figures as Brad Pitt, Dick Cheney, Hilary Clinton and Queen Elizabeth.
Clegg’s organizing team sought to bring the class’s discussions to a wider community, said Durrett. “The event [was meant to lead students] away from the idea that this is an Obama love fest,” Kumar said. “This is really supposed to be taking a look, critically, at Obama’s presidency. What is he doing? What is going on? It’s not so much that you walk away with a certain feeling that you know what Obama is doing [is] right or [is] perfect, but you have better knowledge about his imperfections and the things that the administration is doing.”
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