Americans are starting to realize that what we voted for was merely he who appeared hopeful.  "Hope" itself is not a thing that can be given, not really.  It is something we must find for ourselves.  We can look to those who are hopeful and up-beat for guidance, enlightenment, even empowerment, but cannot rely on them as a substitute for our embracing our own issues, and taking affirmative steps toward climbing out of the predicaments in which we find ourselves.  A parent, for example, can encourage, but as any teenager can tell you, or most adults with above-average IQs, encouragement and positive reinforcement by others do not solve people's individual problems.

For this reason among others, it is hard to say that one can or should be "disappointed" with President Obama at this early stage of his administration.  He's been in office less than two months - he deserves every chance to establish himself.  But still, the standards of performance, even right out of the gates, are a bit different for anyone who aspires to be the the leader of the "free world."

It is immediately apparent that President Obama's bright light of rhetorical hopefulness is fading into a mere silhouette in the mist of political normalcy - his lofty verbiage does not always (or even often) reflect his true positions on important issues.  But that charge is most often levied against elected officials who do not follow through on campaign promises, not to those who, while in office and ostensibly not campaigning, use smoke and mirrors as their primary means of communicating a supposedly populist agenda.  To those paying close attention, it is clear that President Obama's bark is often bigger than his bite.  He and Vice President Biden continue to openly rebuke and chastise the former administration's policies on several fronts, even in the midst of their own consolidation of executive power.  President Obama has issued an Executive Order to close the Guantanamo Bay prison facility itself, and even has refused to use the term "enemy combatant" for the individuals detained in the War on Terror (despite the fact that it is a Congressionally-defined term) but has signaled that military commissions will continue.

Last week, the President ordered that all agencies consult counsel prior to relying on any of President Bush's signing statements, implying a constitutional deficiency in the practice.  The same day, he issued a signing statement of his own.  This could be seen as a petty criticism, along the lines of those who hound the President for his total reliance on teleprompters, or who claim that his image machine is partly responsible for outright censorship of criticism in some fora, such as Wikipedia's scrubbing Obama's page of any edit that questions his eligibility to serve as President.  But there is a subtle sense gathering momentum that being tied to this administration will somehow become radioactive in the same way it was for those close to President Bush.  Nominees/designees keep removing themselves from consideration for some very high-level posts, and while there certainly can be legitimate reasons for individuals to do so, one may question at what point the mass exodus becomes suspicious.

But what has really begun to draw ire from across the board is yet another similarity this President has with President Bush - his ready employment of the politics of fear.  President Bush was accused by many of fear-mongering with respect to the threat of terrorism (a threat that, thankfully, President Obama appears to recognize is very real and continuing); some have started accusing President Obama with similar tactics as to the economy, which can arguably be considered a worse abuse of the bully pulpit as so much of our economic health relies on the psycho-social dimensions of consumer confidence.

What is further discouraging is that President Obama is somewhat passing the buck on the economy.  It is not that he is failing to act - certainly he is addressing the problems in the way he believes needs to be done.  But he constantly reminds people that the problems were there before.  Notably, when the New York Times last week asked him some of the most probing questions he has received thus far about his economic proposals, he pointed out that - the economic fallout we are now experiencing did not begin "on [his] watch."  Somebody needs to explain to him that, while he is certainly correct about that, the election is over, and we don't care.  Reagan's words ("are you better off.  . ."), and Clinton's ("it's the economy . . .") will come alive again in three years.  Even Bush I ("read my lips . . .") will be revived if/when 95% of "working families" do not see their taxes decrease.

And this entire mess has certainly hit very close to home for many GW students this year.  Despite the school last week very proudly touted that we rank #6 in the country for graduates going to BigLaw, we all know classmates, whether graduating 3Ls, or even 2Ls or 1Ls who (theoretically) are more likely to work for free, who are still jobless either for the summer, or for next year.   As if the stresses of finals are not going to be enough in themselves next month, for those who are still clamoring for work, the nearing end of the semester is not much a cause to celebrate.

It is easy for us to get caught-up in what appears to be our pre-determined career path, to apply left and right to firms, big, medium, or small.  But of course, they're all downsizing, and the excess flood of lawyers in the market make for much more difficult competition for clerkships and government attorney positions, neither of which are really a far stone's throw from the firm-track.  But when it comes down to it, we all know that probably half of us had no real intent of practicing law for the rest of our lives when we came to law school; I suspect that many of us now feel the same way, as would many more but for our fear of bleak market outlooks, combined with lawyers' tendencies to be risk-averse to begin with.

But in many ways, the depletion of the firm market is presents new opportunities to pursue passions other than law.  Although, in any other year, taking a non-law job right out of law school would be looked upon as suspect if ever a J.D. were to start looking at firm jobs later on in his career, it is no secret that nobody is hiring lawyers to be lawyers right now.  It is, in the end, a great excuse to explore other non-traditional career paths that do not revolve the billable hour, without suffering from doing so down the road.  If you have a passion for politics or law enforcement, or foreign service or community outreach, you are now free to look at those fields in ways that otherwise probably would be less attractive (and less strategic in terms of career planning) in other years.

There is no doubt, indeed quickly cliché, that we are living in tough times.  But as President Obama has (largely correctly) seen opportunities forged from crisis, so should we.  No matter how successful the administration will be in its policy initiatives, as individuals, seeking to make our way in the world, we are still on our own, subject to our own initiative as a determinant of success, now more than ever.  And that itself can be quite an encouraging thought.