{"id":89144,"date":"2025-09-27T16:16:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T16:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/89144\/"},"modified":"2025-09-27T16:16:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T16:16:13","slug":"what-obama-didnt-say-in-dublin-spoke-loudest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/89144\/","title":{"rendered":"What Obama didn\u2019t say in Dublin spoke loudest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barack Obama arrived on stage in his trademark loping stride, like a farmer pacing land. The wave was familiar too. We\u2019ve seen it often since he first came to prominence as a young senator, on election night in 2008, and throughout his presidency.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The 7,500-seat arena was full, mostly occupied by the grey brigade \u201cwintering well.\u201d Ticket prices started at \u20ac25, but it remains unclear how many were available at that rate because they disappeared in seconds.<\/p>\n

After that, the minimum price was \u20ac140, but some premium tickets with added extras reportedly sold for up to \u20ac2,000. At least those in the cheap seats could take comfort in knowing the event might be worth the price of a good therapy session.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn Evening With President Barack Obama In Conversation with Fintan O’Toole at the 3Arena. Picture: Ray Keogh<\/p>\n

Fintan O\u2019Toole, the evening\u2019s interviewer, got straight to business. He focused on history\u2019s lessons and soon the discussion turned to the savagery in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

\u201cGaza,\u201d Obama said, \u201cis an example of the prison of the past.\u201d He outlined the competing and very real historic grievances on both sides.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe starting point is to acknowledge history,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Toole asked how we got here, and Obama gave a concise history of liberal democracy\u2019s evolution \u2014 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\u2019s how he tells it: distilling complex systems and ideas into a version that goes down easily, leaving an aftertaste of more.<\/p>\n

Of course, hanging over everything was He Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken. At no point in the 90-minute interview did that person\u2019s name cross Obama\u2019s lips. The closest was O\u2019Toole\u2019s reference to \u201cthe T word.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AnAn Evening With President Barack Obama In Conversation with Fintan O’Toole at the 3Arena. Picture: Ray Keogh<\/p>\n

Beyond that, it was all what wasn\u2019t said. Obama spoke about authoritarian rule in \u201cHungary, Turkey and now it\u2019s being mimicked in other places\u201d. (And where might that be?)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Recalling an oil spill during his presidency, he referenced \u201cthe Gulf of Mexico,\u201d pausing for a beat to underline that he would not use T\u2019s rebranded \u201cGulf of America.\u201d He warned, \u201cPeople who are oppressors will go after storytellers, comics and artists\u201d. Another pause. Jimmy Kimmel anybody? And on it went in that vein.<\/p>\n

The strategy nodded to the once-quaint tradition of former presidents avoiding criticism of incumbents, especially abroad. On another level, it worked perfectly \u2014 symbolically denying oxygen to a megalomaniac who can\u2019t open his mouth without self-praise. Still, despite Obama\u2019s stirring rhetoric, a heaviness from the outside world lingered over the arena.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn Evening With President Barack Obama In Conversation with Fintan O’Toole at the 3Arena. Picture: Ray Keogh<\/p>\n

Eleven months ago, a week before last November\u2019s US presidential election, the Irish Examiner was in Philadelphia\u2019s Temple University arena, where 10,000 adoring supporters practically sat at Obama\u2019s feet during a rally for Kamala Harris.<\/p>\n

He wore no jacket, his white shirt sleeves rolled up for work.<\/p>\n

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\u2019 opponent.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s 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\u2019s still tweeting at all times of night, all cats. When he\u2019s not complaining he\u2019s trying to sell you stuff. He wants to sell you a Swiss watch, $100,000, but they can\u2019t find where exactly in Switzerland it is actually made. He wants to sell you a Trump bible.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AnAn Evening With President Barack Obama In Conversation with Fintan O’Toole at the 3Arena. Picture: Ray Keogh<\/p>\n

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\u2019Toole asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grapple with that, did I say enough,\u201d he replied. \u201cMaybe if I called it out more clearly some people and their politics, people might have been forewarned. It\u2019s a tough balance and I haven\u2019t figured it out yet.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the end, O\u2019Toole invoked Martin Luther King\u2019s dictum that \u201cthe long arc of history bends towards justice.\u201d Does Obama still believe that?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d emphasise the long point,\u201d he quipped, adding that everyone has a role in preserving and nourishing democracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does not bend by itself,\u201d he said of the long arc. \u201cWe grab it and pull it towards justice.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barack Obama arrived on stage in his trademark loping stride, like a farmer pacing land. The wave was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[4488,27860,50347,9,10,356,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-89144","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-irish-examiner-instagram","9":"tag-israel-palestine","10":"tag-us-elections","11":"tag-breaking-news","12":"tag-breakingnews","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-featured-news","15":"tag-featurednews","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories","24":"tag-world","25":"tag-world-news","26":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}