I kept my mouth and fingers pretty quiet during the primaries and election because I was pretty tired of all the finger-pointing and in-party squabling. I couldn’t go anywhere to ask a question about a candidate without being attacked by a supporter and accused of being an anti-supporter; really I just wanted information and mostly I wanted to know what people were thinking other than the talking points.
However, I found that if I asked a question about how people felt about Obama signing the Patriot Act, I would be accused of being a “Bitter Hillary Supporter” and told that Obama explained that on the floor when he voted that day — though no one could tell me what the explanation was.
When I asked people about one of Hillary’s proposed policies, I had my head nearly bitten off and was accused of being a “Hillary Hater”.
And denying that you are either will get you no where.
The thing is that from the beginning of 2004 through sometime in 2006, every day on the Internet and sometimes in real life, all I read was ranting back and forth between Republicans and Democrats about how awful each party was and how evil their candidates were. After awhile, I imagined, if I closed my eyes I could see the spit flying and hear all of the ranting in howler-monkey voices. Not that I wasn’t caught up in it too. Day after fatiguing day, trying to make the apparent brainwashed see logic and sense, but, you see, once the cult has you, unless you’re ready, the intervention won’t work. I know this because my cult told me so.
I was angry all of the time during those years, reading those rants, but then I realized that I was angry even when I was reading the rants from people who were supposed to be on the same side as me. I started feeling a little uncomfortable when I realized how angry everyone was and how after two years, they were still arguing over the same exact things; in fact they were saying exactly the same things. I actually looked through my own blog and noticed that my own rants appeared on a cycle — some of them had become annual. Nothing was getting better or worse. It was the same shit different year and no one seemed to notice. The same scandals were rearing their same ugly heads over and over and the press was acting like they were brand new scandals and so, it seemed were the bloggers who angrily ranted about them.
Fortunately for me, I recall that my mother murdered my goldfish when I was in elementary school, and I would recall if it happened a second time — like when I broke my left elbow the second time in exactly the same place and the doctor told me if I did it a third time, I’d be paralyzed from the elbow down; I have a good memory for these kinds of things. So when history starts to repeat itself, and I know it’s not supposed to because I’ve been told since I was a kid that whole thing about learning stuff so it won’t repeat itself, I kind of take notice.
That’s when I cut way down on reading and discussing politics online. I couldn’t change what was going on, but I could change how I was handling it and how it affected me. That’s also why I decided early this year, that I wasn’t going to participate in online discussions about the election — by early February, it was easy to see that the Democrats didn’t need the Republicans to have a good ole howler monkey party. If I couldn’t have a reasonable discussion with a Democrat where I could ask questions about candidate policies and agendas and voter opinions, if all I got was talking points and vicious attacks — on a knitting forum — then I thought it was time to hide away for a bit and keep my thoughts to myself — which I can tell you now, were left wanting a reasonable, electable third party candidate all the way until Nov. 4th. (And I would have felt the same way if Hillary had been nominated too — so there!)
Now that said, I recently let slip my annoyance with all of the attention President-Elect Obama is getting prior to his inauguration; the press is behaving as if he is already the President and as if with a wave of his hand he is going to solve all the ills of this country. That attitude and hero-worship for a practically unknown, basically inexperienced politician, who actually has some ties to questionable people though amazingly he didn’t know them when they were questionable, just makes me extremely queasy and it hurts my head.
At least Dave Barry made me laugh at it despite how frightening it is:
On the Democratic side, the surprise winner is Barack Obama, who is running for president on a long and impressive record of running for president. A mesmerizing speaker, Obama electrifies voters with his exciting new ideas for change, although people have trouble remembering exactly what these ideas are because they are so darned mesmerized. Some people become so excited that they actually pass out. These are members of the press corps.
See it’s scary funny because it’s true. (Emphasis thrown in by me.)
In politics, Barack Obama addresses the issue of why, in his 20 years of membership in Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, he failed to notice that the pastor, Jeremiah Wright, is a racist lunatic. In a major televised address widely hailed for its brilliance, Obama explains that . . . Okay, nobody really remembers what the actual explanation was. But everybody agrees it was mesmerizing.
Remember when Rev. Wright was Obama’s mentor He was like a father to Obama for 20 years until half way through the primaries and then he was an albatross, meaning Obama is just like every other politician who kicks his troublesome friends and loved ones to the curb when the publicity gets tough.
In other campaign-related news, Chicago developer Tony Rezko, a former Obama associate and fundraiser, is convicted on corruption charges, but media representatives realize that this is not an issue after Obama explains that it is not an issue.
I’m amazed that Obama has managed to pull this Jedi mind trick off so many times — he has more than one connection to more than one shady character that no one is allowed to talk about because he says so and amazingly no one does. He managed to pull off this sort of nonesense before he even became President, imagine the power he’s going to have to control what kind of information the public is allowed to know once he becomes President — and we thought the Bush administration was secretive.
Barack Obama, having secured North and South America, flies to Germany without using an airplane and gives a major speech — speaking English and German simultaneously — to 200,000 mesmerized Germans, who immediately elect him chancellor, prompting France to surrender.
I thought this was really rather pompous and he wanted to make a speech in a location reserved for actual country leaders too. Rather presumptive. I also thought it was extremely rude when he canceled his trip to visit the troops when he was told no cameras would be allowed — even if he had some other more important reason like he really did need to work out at the gym, it gave the appearance of only wanting to use the troops. I think President Bush actually might have gone anyway — he loves sucking up to the troops.
Barack Obama, continuing to shake up the establishment, selects as his running mate Joe Biden, a tireless fighter for change since he was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1849. The Democratic Party gathers in Denver to formally nominate Obama, who descends from his Fortress of Solitude to mesmerize the adoring crowd with an acceptance speech objectively described by the New York Times as “comparable to the Gettysburg Address, only way better.”
Maybe I should have just gone with that quote. I think it sums up my feelings quite well. Obama may well be the President that this country needs to bring us out of the mess the Bush administration has put us in after 8 years of chaos and stupidity, and I even voted for him, but I have had this very bad feeling about it all. There’s something not quite right; it feels like we’ve elected a travelling tent revivalist. Every time I saw those big crowds forming on the screen, waiting hours just to see him, just to be near th building he would be speaking in, behaving like he is The Beatles, hanging on every word, but unable to tell me anything he said, swooning at his feet. Even now the way his memorabilia sells, like he’s a teen idol. The way people are obsessing about the family dog even bothers me.
I’m worried about the power he’s going to have. I’m worried about the expectations people will have when he finally gets in office. I’m worried about how long people will wait for the things they expect him to do and solve to be done and solved. I’m worried that he’s waltzed in there with very little experience (most of the time he spent in national office, he was campaigning for President) and I’m worried that the weight of the world is going to be quite heavy for someone who seems to think he has high ideals and think he doesn’t have to compromise to get things done in Washington. I’m worried about what’s going to happen when things become status quo for the Obama administration. And I’m worried if they don’t.
I’m worried about the big question mark.
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Thanks for the thoughtful post!
Your point about our President Elect having almost no national government experience really rings a bell with me. In all the pre-election frenzy over the candidates on the two teams, I noticed that only one has experience in the executive branch of government. Palin. And one of the major complaints people had about her was her lack of experience.
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Well, at least Hillary Clinton and McCain have experience on a national level; even if you leave out Hillary’s years as First Lady, she’s held a national office longer than Obama has and she actually held the office and did work while she was holding the office without the distraction of running for another office. Everyone kept using the time Obama had been in the national Congress as experience when in actuality, starting in 2007 he spent most of his time running for President rather than actually doing the job he’d already been elected to, which is a pet peeve I’ve written about in the past — I don’t believe elected officials should be running for another office while still holding office.
And, yes, you’re correct, Palin was the only one who actually had executive experience. In fact, I thought it was debatable as to who had spent more time actually serving in a political office. (Though I wouldn’t have voted for her either. I respected her for being a strong, working mother who stood by her ideals, but I didn’t agree with a lot of her agenda.)
An interesting post, and I’ll probably respond on my blog when I can get a free moment. But I wanted to address the “shady characters” thing.
I heard complaints about Obama’s connections with shady characters a lot from some of the people around me, but no one could tell me anything beyond that. There were a few journalists who looked into the connections and determined that, yup, there were connections — if slight. No one was able to tell me what Obama was supposed to have done with these people, or had any specific allegations of wrongdoing. They just said “Obama knows these shady people and he must be up to something.” Absence of a specific something was (and apparently still is) taken as proof of a conspiracy of silence among journalists and Obama’s supporters.
But I am “connected” with lots of shady characters myself. People who have been involved in drugs, credit card fraud, probably even federal contracting fraud. I have “connections” with socialists and klansmen. But that doesn’t mean I’ve done anything wrong.
Of course Obama has connections with shady characters. What was missing was someone explaining why those connections mattered. And until I hear something credible there, yes — I am dismissive. Because it’s nothing more than a whisper campaign and an incompetent one at that.
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I have to admit that I have had connections to “shady” characters myself — I lost a government internship in college due to some of those connections. (Interestingly, only a few years later, they gave me a Secret level clearance. Huh. But again, that had to do with who you know.)
However, I worry some about Rezko — a connection like him would be a major scandal for anyone else in Congress. Not only was he a major contributor and fundraiser, he served on Obama’s finance committee for his 2004 Senate campaign and they have been friends since Obama was in law school.
The one I really worry about is Rev. Wright. I went to church every Sunday well into my late 20’s and I was heavily immersed in church and religious organizations until then. I cannot believe that Obama, who was heavily involved in community works, was not also heavily involved in the church community — especially since he had previously referred to Wright as a mentor. And Trinity is certainly the kind of church that pulls you in, that makes you feel the desire to participate, that enfolds you. I’ve been to these churches. You can’t tell me that Obama went to Trinity for 20 years and was untouched and uninfluenced by Rev. Wright’s energetic ranting. I think he’s smart enough to have been paying attention — after all, he decided to disinvite Wright from giving the public invocation at his Presidential campaign announcement because he thought Wright’s sermons sometimes came off a little “rough”.
I just want to feel more secure that Obama is really telling the truth, that he isn’t going to be bringing his religious beliefs to the Oval Office. And I also want to feel less worried that there aren’t skeletons in the closet that haven’t been left hanging in there because no one wanted to talk about them or see them. I just find it hard to believe that he is that perfect.
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