Poetic Justice a'la Obama for Asian Americans

Captain James Yee
General Eric Shinseki
General Antonio Taguba
Dr. Wen Ho Lee
Dr. Steven Chu
Our new President is a poet in the most subliminal level. While he often underscores the symbolic significance of his gestures, everything about the position has always been emblematic of our collective identities as Americans. We've just forgotten the psychological power of presidential imagery on account of the outgoing President. Not many wanted to discuss what we lost in terms of the unparalleled nuance and essence that leadership provides to a nation, because doing so would have caused us to be labeled as elitist and unpatriotic. Thus many stayed silent about the anti-intellectualism seemingly espoused by the ascension of George W. Bush, precisely because it would have been a self reflexive and self inflicted insult to our decision making process as a nation. The whole world laughed while half of us got offended, and the other half or so went into denial.

Why go into denial? Because to agree with those incredulous as to why we as a nation allowed such grand travesty in 2000 would have been deemed unpatriotic. We saw the Republicans attempt to do this to Michelle Obama in particular when she exercised her God given right to engage her audience in some critical thinking and insightful analysis as to the state of our national psyche. We all remember how Mrs. Cindy McCain seized that moment to label Atty. Obama as unpatriotic, thereby enhancing her talking points as a more accurate and authentic representative of American patriotism and identity.

Towards the end of the Clinton presidency, a Chinese American scientist named Wen Ho Lee was accused of the most vile form of betraying the nation--espionage. (See Emil Guillermo's article in Asianweek: http://www.asianweek.com/2008/12/04/a-slap-in-our-face-we-can%E2%80%99t-...) Dr. Lee worked at the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore Laboratories funded by the Department of Energy which in 1999 was headed by Bill Richardson, who many sympathetic to Dr. Lee blame for the unwarranted discriminatory manner by which Dr. Lee was treated.

In 2003, an Army chaplain in Guantanamo named James Yee was also accused of spying and fraternizing with the inmates. While all charges against him were also dropped, he received no apology from the Armed Forces.

A few years later, the traumatizing images from Abu Ghraib shocked the entire world. Gen. Antonio Taguba was tasked with investigating the incident. After making his report, General Taguba was forced out of the service because his report frankly stated that the accused soldiers were part of a more systemic operation of torture that went pretty high up in the chain of command.

Right before the US invaded Iraq, General Eric Shinseki testified before Congress that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to complete the mission. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld publicly vilified him, and forced him out of office. Years later, and thousands of American deaths later, Gen. Shinseki's unheeded and disrespected analysis stands true.

Dr. Wen Ho Lee, James Yee, and Generals Antonio Taguba and Eric Shinseki were serving this country with honor when they were disrespected and discriminated against. Last week, President-elect Obama appointed General Eric Shinseki to head Veterans Affairs to administer and manage the agency who will care for the soldiers he wanted to send to a smart and necessary war, very unlike the mission Cheney, Bush and Rumsfeld gave them.

Next week, President-elect Obama will hopefully announce his nomination of Nobel Prize winning Dr. Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy. Dr. Chu, like Dr. Lee, also comes out of Lawrence Livermore Lab and the University of California Berkeley.

By appointing Dr. Steven Chu and General Eric Shinseki, President Obama is not "making a statement" just like he is not when he will finally officially use his middle name Hussein when he is sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. Thankfully, we as a nation are slowly re-learning the full majesty and power the Presidency holds, so we accept once again that everything the President does is indeed a statement that sends a message.

I hear the message loud and clear. I get the nuance. I appreciate the gesture. I hope Dr. Wen Ho Lee, James Yee, and General Antonio Taguba do too.

Best of luck to General Shinseki and Dr. Chu. I am proud of the example you are giving us, like the examples of James Yee, Wen Ho Lee, and General Antonio Taguba.