MHere in the northeast, major candidates for office even with big pockets (such as Jon Corzine running for governor in New Jersey) are fighting for their political lives, Congress is back in its proverbial doghouse and the midterm elections seem uncertain for both parties, and the rainbow luster is fast fading from the Obama presidency.

What do people want? Unfortunately, in a democracy, they want often contradictory things and they want them now. The liberals want Obama to recoup all the losses they suffered during what they see as the near-Armageddon of the Bush years—and they want it in now. The conservatives are determined not to give it to them and are hunkering down for the midterm elections. The moderates see no hope in either party and nothing but despair in the eternal gridlock that is democracy, where everybody has a say, and everybody can be a naysayer.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, Obama is an incrementalist in these trying times. He does things in a measured way and will usually parse the results. He doesn’t move fast enough for his constituents (and too fast for his opponents). In just one year he has been called everything from a waffler, to a dictator, to an elitist, to a Hitler, to the most dangerous man in America, by that other most dangerous man in America, Rush Limbaugh.

It’s a very cacophonous world out there and few are stopping to listen, let alone change their minds, but as Greeks we should be familiar with the game. We’re proud of the democracy we brought into the world, proud of the practical fulfillment of that democracy that America is, but sometimes we forget the turbulent course that democracy can take. And we might forget the cautionary tale of how the glorious ancient Greeks eventually destroyed themselves in never-ending internecine wars and how the glory that was Greece was very brief period on the historical timeline.

Americans are more forgiving than we Greeks ever were, but the choke-hold of special interests in the American political system (the army of lobbyists representing special interests, the in-bred constituency of the various governmental branches—Defense vs. State, the Congress vs. the Judiciary vs. the Executive), and the growing stridency in cyberspace and the rants it perpetuates has accounted for a very dire period of uncertainty.

Obama has his hands full and is getting the full brunt of the uncertainty that people are enduring and reacting to, and, unfortunately, the civility that he brings to government and the public debate is being drowned out by the incivility of the alarmists of every persuasion.

But we should be grateful for our democracy, warts and all, because as Winston Churchill once famously said, democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.

Dimitri C. Michalakis