Congrats to Obama for winning the presidency. Judging from the euphoria in this country and around the world at his victory, I'd say he's got some huge expectations to live up to. (For instance, on talk radio yesterday, they were replaying over and over some interview with a lady in line to vote yesterday who said something to the effect of: "I won't have anything to worry about. I won't lose my house, I won't have to pay high gas prices. If I help him he's gonna take care of me." I'm not exaggerating that at all. That is what she said.) Suffice it to say, people will expect impossible things from our new messiah...I mean, president.
That aside, it was hard not to get swept up in the excitement. Although, I have to say I chuckled at the shot of Jesse Jackson weeping like a baby. Was it because he was so happy at this historic step forward in civil rights, or was it that he was wondering "why isn't that me up there?!" (You have to wonder considering his earlier statements that Obama was "too white.")
But hell, I voted for Obama, so I truly wish him the best. It looks like the Dems did not get the dreaded 60 seats in the Senate, which is good. Obama will be forced to work with the other side on some things. I am excited about the potential. Obama will go a long way to repair our reputation abroad. He is a thoughtful and reflective man, such a wonderful contrast to the reactionary dullard who "hates to read" we've had for the last 8 years.
A note on McCain: what a gracious speech he gave last night. A classy and heartfelt speech; McCain will still be relevant. Maybe he can go back to doing what he does best, being the real McCain again in the Senate. He was so much better than so many in his party. And, unfortunately, Palin is not going away.
15 comments:
I, for one, am glad Palin isn't going away.
I can understand how a non-lawyer, family oriented politician might come off as a moronic hick, but she does represent conservatism as I recognize it because she lives and practices it.
She's not one of these NYC or DC "conservatives" like Peggy Noonan, Chris Hitchens or Kathleen Parker where conservatism is great in theory and obviously the best way to recapture true conservatism is to vote for a man who is the absolute opposite of it?
Anyway, the reason Palin isn't going anywhere is people that would fall in her "base" really like her.
Regarding Bush, I think history will be much more forgiving than his approval ratings dictate. I say this because back when Slick Willy was president, I didn't much care for his antics, ethics and some of his policies, but in hindsight, he did rule from the center and I hope Barry-O does the same.
Nice post, Dez.
I was glad they didn't get to 60, too. I thought both speeches were great. McCain's was a touching look at a campaign that "could have been." It was a speech (and a candidate) better than that booing crowd deserved.
Clearly, as you state, there are going to be people whose expectations are silly and unattainable. For the rest of us, I don't think it's sentimental to talk about "hope." Very tough times ahead, still, but some exciting possibilities, too...
Not only are you not exaggerating the woman's comments, Dez, you are underplaying them by quite a bit. Her exact quote (video of which has been bouncing around the internet for a week now) was "I won't have to worry about paying my mortgage or filling up my car with gas." Truly frightening.
I voted for McCain. I didn't think I was going to for a while there, but I'm a Republican at heart, and in the end, I just couldn't break away from that. Plus, Obama started to frighten me with his readings from the Socialist's Handbook...specifically the part about sharing my wealth. Really, am I supposed to give up a portion of the money that I work for every day so that this fat loser woman from the first paragraph doesn't have to pay the mortgage on her house? You know, I'm going to pay at least $12,000 out of pocket for my home repairs after this recent hurricane, and the only reason that I don't qualify for government assistance is because I had the foresight and intelligence to actually take out insurance. If I had never gotten home insurance, I would get a free ride on the FEMA train. So, no thank you, I would prefer not to share any of my wealth with the stupid and lazy. I'm pretty sure I read a quote from someone that sounded something like "From each, according to his ability; To each, according to his need." I can't remember exactly who said it, but I'm almost positive it was not someone who lived in this country.
Sorry, I got off on a rant there. What I was actually going to say is that I did vote for McCain in the end. However, as I said to my wife last night, I was not crushed to see Obama win. It's actually going to be nice to have a real communicator back in the White House. And, when it comes down to it, that's really the President's major job...he's the face of the nation. When it comes to shaping the policies of our country, he really has very little power. That responsibility lies mainly with the Congress. Of course, in our celebrity obsessed culture, it's so much sexier to discuss the Presidential election, than it is to worry about all of those individual state Senators and Representatives. There are too many of them, and it's too hard to remember all of their names.
In the end, things turned out just about how I had figured they would. So, nothing last night came as a big surprise. Keep in mind, that my prediction way back at the beginning of this year, after the very first Democratic Primary debate was that "Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States". And, he is. So, there you go. Looking back, I don't think anything could have stopped him. A lot of people were saying that Hillary was inevitable, but the truth is that Obama was set to be the next President ever since he gave his speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention. With the benefit of hindsight, I think the only Republican that could have posed any challenge to Obama would have been Romney. I think he still would have lost, but I think Romney would have fared better in the end than McCain. His religion would have hurt him, but his slick, celebrity-like appearance and demeanor would have mesaured up better against Obama than McCain could have ever hoped to.
Bottom line, this country loves a President that can stand up and give a good speech. If Reagan had not been an actor, he would not be viewed in the same way that he is today. Hell, Bill Clinton was getting blowjobs at his desk in the Oval Office, but he could talk good, so we forgave him in the end. I couldn't have listened to McCain for four years...he would have been only slightly better than Bush. So, in a time when this country needs to be pulled together and needs to feel better about its future, I think the right person was elected.
As for Sarah Palin, I do agree that she is not going away. However, I think we are going to see her much less in a political role, and much more involved in some way with the media. I am almost positive she will wind up with her own television show. The people who are starting to talk about Palin in 2012 are just being ridiculous, and that will die down within a few weeks. I mean, it's fun to fool around with the girl in high school for a month or two, but you don't marry her.
Barry-O will not rule from the center, Palin should not and will not go away, Busch has kept our homeland safe since 9-11. You'll get what you voted for!
SE
What great comments! I love it!
Hoodlumman: I can sympathize somewhat with what you are saying. But I can't really agree. She came across as a moronic hick because that is what she is. I'm sorry. Look at her educational record, for instance. She bounced around from school to school, taking fluff courses. When she hit the national stage she was woefully unprepared. Way out of her league. I am not saying that in the next few years she can improve a great deal and therefore become a much more formiddable and deserving political force (in fact, I would not be surprised at all if that happens). But in the here and now, she is minor league and had no business being on that ticket.
Also, I don't really get this glorification of being a "regular guy/gal." Our Founding Fathers were not Joe Six-Packs. They were freakin' elites; the best of the best. I am glad that we had James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and the rest steering this ship in the early days instead of Bart the Bartender, Bob the Barber and Hank the Horse Stall Cleaner. I don't want some "normal guy/gal" being my president. I want an extraordinary person leading my nation. That is who needs to be there. I don't want someone I can relate to. I want someone smarter and better than me to be my commander in chief.
Also, having a legal education is not a bad thing in our leaders. Since, I don't know, they make, execute and interpret laws and shit. =)
And the Republicans are going to have to go to the drawing board and figure out how to somehow make a workable coalition out of the religious kooks, libertarians, backwoods base and the "DC conservatives." (And I consider myself a Republican). I don't see Palin pulling all of those constituents together.
JMW - as I had to explain to the children in my class today, the booing during McCain's concession speech is standard form at concession speeches. Go back to Kerry's in 2004 and you heard the same thing.
I've got hope in Obama. I really do.
Walter - the Socialist thing is kinda silly. We have gone back and forth on the liberal-conservative spectrum throughout our history. FDR's New Deal was called "Socialist" too. Perhaps it kind of was. But these are just labels. You have to adjust with the needs of the times in which you live. If Obama wants to get re-elected (which he does, since in his speech last night he made reference to his "first" term), he will have to reign in his more egregious Leftist tendencies. The president usually rules from the Center, only slightly Right or Left of it. we survived Carter, we can survive Obama.
I was on record in 2004 when he gave his speech at the Dem Convention that he was going to be president some day.
But Walter, the president does influence policy. He sets the agenda, so to speak. You can't say that Reagan didn't greatly influence policy and lawmaking during the 80's. And these new Dems that just got swept in on Obama's popular coattails? They owe him. They know it, and he knows it. Obama will be a VERY powerful president.
McCain did not do as bad as the electoral college suggests. The popular vote spread was much closer. McCain did as well as ANY Republican could have this year. a republican was not going to win. Period. Romney would have done worse.
Finally, Anonymous makes a good point. The Bush Administration has kept our homeland safe from attack since 9/11. That is huge.
Palin won't go away, but the size of her role in four years will say a heck of a lot about the viability of the GOP. She can be a minor figure in a healthy party. If she's the main attraction, you're not even serious about competing nationwide.
Walter Evans, you make a good point about it being "sexier" to follow presidential politics than to learn all the names of more local politicians. But I can't believe you're peddling the socialism stuff. That is absurd. Obama's proposed marginal tax rates are no different than they were for a time under Reagan. And I hate to break it to you, but your taxes don't just go where you want them to -- that doesn't make them socialistic. Joe the Plumber, in short, is a moron.
Plus, Palin reigns over Alaska, which she herself has stated shares its energy wealth "collectively." She writes four-digit checks to every one of her citizens every year. Great practice for ruling the rest of the country, where we're obviously rolling in money.
Dez, I agree about the elite thing. The proud dumbing down of this country is what could lead us to an Idiocracy-like future. To me, this is not a left-or-right issue. But perhaps Obama can stem that tide a little bit. Of course, it's up to everyone else, at the end of the day.
Lastly, there's no way Romney would have done better than McCain. In terms of popular vote, this could have been a lot worse, given all factors. The GOP had a weak field this year, the electorate tends to prefer youth and vitality to people in their old age, every likely trend would seem to dictate that the voters were going to "punish" the Republicans, and McCain really surrendered a lot of the vast middle (and even the smart right) in this country when he chose Palin.
You won't get an argument from me that she was unprepared for the national spotlight.
But I'll never agree that she's a "moronic hick." How do moronic hicks achieve positions of higer power like governorships? Does the size of the state matter? Hicks can be governors of small states but only elite law gurus can be governors of big states (the real, non-hickish states where they don't marry their cousins lolz!!!!)
Pick one, Dez: she's a moron hick with her own Rove and Cheney type overlords in the background, or she actually is quite a political fighter and scrapper that has achieved things on her own because she's shrewd and smart enough to navigate the political landscape - at least on a state level.
Which one is it?
She was a pick that came out of nowhere, so the media was caught off guard and they got their interviews, asked a litany of gotcha questions, edited the hell out of the interviews and presto! A moron hick with lipstick!
I saw the interviews. I cringed. Then I watched her unfiltered and how she interacted with people and I realized what happened. It doesn't take a law degree to know what that was.
p.s. The executive branches (state and nationally) don't make the laws - they enforce them. So no law degree necessary. IN YO FACE! :)
Of course it's not absurd to bring up Socialism! It would be abusrd to ignore it. I'm not calling the man a Socialist (although he may indeed have slight tendencies). In fact, I have said that I am happy he was elected. However, during the last month before the election, Obama made the decision to include as central tenets of his stump speech this "Share The Wealth"/"Get Your Piece Of The Pie" mentality. I'm not paraphrasing him...those are his direct quotes. And, he didn't just say it once. He said it in every speech that he gave in October. Now, there is simply no way to deny that those exact quotes are part of the central beliefs of Socialism and Communism...and very contradictory to the American idea of Capitalism. Perhaps that's not exactly what he meant...in which case, he should have been much more careful with the words that he chose. Being a Conservative (and, most importantly, a Financial Conservative), those ideas scare the hell out of me, and I could not ethically vote for the man. jmw, of course you have some say in where your tax dollars go. You simply vote for the candidate that best reflects your views on what portion of the American citizens' hard-earned incomes should be used, and for what purposes.
Dez, I could not agree more on the "regular guy" syndrome that has taken over this country. As you are well aware, I am not particularly fond of "regular" people, and I would certainly not want them running my country or influencing political policy.
I also agree with jmw on the booing at the concession speech. It may be standard, but that doesn't make it right.
The President certainly has "influence". However, I don't think he has nearly the amount of power that the average American would credit him with. Give me a strong Congress composed of a large majority of members that reflect my views and have the backbones to stand up for what they believe in, and I couldn't really care less who the President is...as long as he is attractive and eloquent and comes across as a strong leader.
Let me make one final thing clear. Romney would not have beaten Obama. I don't think anyone would have beaten Obama. However, as jmw points out, the electorate tends to prefer youth and vitality. That was exactly my point. Obama was clearly going to win the election, but if the Republicans wanted to put someone up against him that was going to be any match for his youth and vitality, Romney would have been the only choice available. It's very much like the Nixon/Kennedy race. Nixon may have been an extremely strong candidate (this was pre-Watergate, keep in mind), but he looked like a bulldog. When it comes to youth and vitality, no one was ever going to beat Kennedy.
Yall are missing the biggest issue. I am not gay or anything, but Michelle's black and red dress on election night looked ridiculously bad
Agreed, pocky. Michelle and Cindy McCain both dressed like they not only expected to lose, but that they expected their outfits to be ruined in a mudstorm or something. Both were just hideous. Michelle's mom looked kind of hot, though...
I'm kind of partial to McCain's mom.
A few random responses:
1) On "Regular Guys"--I think you all are a little unfair here. Yes, the founding fathers were, in essence, aristocrats. But some of America's greatest leaders and thinkers were not. Truman, Jackson, and--the big one--Abraham Lincoln were all pretty ordinary folks who did extraordinary things. America also trusts 'regular people" to sit on juries and decide on cases as complicated as the Enron fraud. Most lawyers, I think, would tell you such juries generally do an excellent job. If you had to choose between being ruled by 20 Harvard Professors or 20 people chosen at random from the phone book (to use a semi-famous example), who would you pick? I think I'd go the latter. Really.
2) I don't think Palin's election to the governorship of Alaska validates her intellect or competence in any way. Plenty of unimpressive people get elected to far higher positions. I'm not saying that the president of the United States needs to have read the Iliad, but they should at least know what it is. Or CARE that they don't know what it is. Palin represented the worst of the Republican Party in my view--the notion that because something is valued by people on the coasts, because it's associated with "The Academy", because it's unfamiliar and/or difficult it is, by definition, preposterous. Anti-intellectualism is not, in itself, a proof of moral seriousness. Someone needs to tell Palin that. And Bush, while we're on the subject.
3) All taxes redistribute wealth. To equate with that socialism is to fall back on a version of the "slippery slope" argument, and I don't think it works. If Obama was caling for the nationalization of American oil companies, you'd have a case. But he's not (at least that I know about)
4) THAT would be a funny skit: if Obama issued a series of edicts that essentially outlined a five-year plan similar to the one Stalin used when he took over Russia. Someone should write that.
5) I've also got a good idea for a skit making fun of Charlie Rose. The premise is that Jesus Christ has just returned to Earth. He decides to do his first interview on Charlie Rose. But we never get to hear what Jesus has to say, because Rose keeps interrupting him with asides that prove Rose's own familiarity with the Bible, or his friendships with important New York movers and shakers.
6) But that might have too narrow an audience.
7) Another skit idea: a send-up of the tv show "The Mole" in which one of the characters is an actual mole. (The animal). Many clips of people being interviewed who speculate about who the mole could be. The mole himself interviewed, saying "he's pretty sure it's Christina." It writes itself, really.
My comparison to Socialism was really based more on the words that Obama chose to use, rather than the general idea of taxes. No Presidential candidate should ever use the phrase "Share The Wealth". It's really just begging for an unfavorable interpretation.
Besides, not all taxes are the same. Some tax revenue is obviously necessary to support this country. However, Obama seems to look at taxes as a modern-day Robin Hood, where he literally takes from the rich to give to the poor. At least that is how I read "Share The Wealth" and "Get Your Piece Of The Pie". And, that specific use of tax revenue is most certainly not based on the Capitalist system...at least, as far as I understand it.
Your "Mole" skit is one of the funniest things I have read in a long time.
All three skit ideas are excellent, ANCIANT. But Andrew Jackson? That's one of your three examples of ordinary folks becoming extraordinary leaders? I'm not such a big fan. One can only hope, however, that if Palin makes a deal with the devil and gets elected, her inaugural will be half as exciting as Jackson's. And I quote:
'His “reception” went awry from the start. When the staff opened the doors
to bring out the first barrels of orange and rum punch, the exultant crowd burst
in and knocked several over, soaking the floor in sticky booze and smashed glasses.
The guests were, said eyewitness Margaret Bayard Smith, “a rabble, a mob, of boys,
negros, women, children, scrambling, fighting, romping… Ladies fainted, men were
seen with bloody noses, and such a scene of confusion as is impossible to describe.”
The crowd quickly took possession of the White House: So many people were squeezed
inside that the building itself creaked and shuddered dangerously. A bodyguard of
loyal friends had to form a ring around the scarecrow figure of Jackson so he wouldn’t
be crushed to death or asphyxiated by well-wishers.'
Good conversation.
I would also enjoy those skits, ANCIANT. Please flesh them out and send me the scripts for review. Once I give the greenlight, please assemble the talent to act them out, film them, and I will post them here at GNABB.
Hoodlumman, out of the choices that you presented to me, I pick a hybrid of them. As in, Palin is a moron hick who is also a scrappy fighter with just enough brains to compete with other Alaskan politicos. That probably doesn't require too much brainpower. For instance, it looks like the genius people of Alaska just re-elected Ted Stevens to the Senate, a man who was just convicted on seven counts of making false statements and failing file the proper reports of his political graft and gifts over the years. Success in Seward's Folly does not translate to being qualified to even sniffing the White House.
I share your feelings about the liberal mainstream media generally and stupid "gotcha" questions in general. But you know, there is a floor. I mean, you ought to be able to name a Supreme Court case if you want to become the figurehead of our entire federal government. ANY Supreme Court case. That was beyond unreasonable gotcha questions.
I was trying to cover all three branches and speaking generally when I said that our leaders make (legislative), execute (executive), and interpret (judicial) laws. All three areas benefit from having people involved with legal training. Remember, I teach this shit to our future generations!
Walter, Romney was not particularly attractive. Yes, he has nice hair, but he comes across as a sleazy car salesman. And he's a mormon. Who believes that he will inherit his own planet. He would have gotten stomped.
I must continue to disagree with you about your contention that the president really is not as powerful as people think. He is. There is a reason that the presidency in the second half of the 20th Century through today is referred to as The Imperial Presidency by some political gurus. Modern presidents have figured out how to conduct wars without Congress ever declaring war (a check our Founding Fathers intended to be there). They have figured out how to surreptitiously take some of the purse strings away from the Legislative Branch. With the power of media, the president is able to martial public opinion in his favor in his battles with an often quarreling Congress (Reagan, obviously, was a master at this). The presidency is more powerful than it has ever been in history (well, besides during FDR's terms).
ANCIANT, I agree with your bro. I don't think Jackson was all that either. But I'll give you Lincoln. And not only should our leaders have read 'The Iliad', they should also be able to recite it from memory. In the original Greek dialects.
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