Move Over, Millard Fillmore
That's my message to George W. Bush. Inauguration Day was a wonderful day for America, rare, fine, cloudless and cold. For a single day at least we could look to the future--and its enormous, planetary challenges--with hope and pride even amid our trepidation.
I was very skeptical of Barack Obama until well into the primary season because of his inexperience, but his every move over the summer and fall won me over: the discipline, the intelligence, the seriousness and lack of drama, the move towards solving our problems and away from partisan (and intra-mural) squabbling. His acceptance speech in Grant Park and the transition to the White House were further evidence of, at the very least, a basic competence that was like a tonic, throwing the cronyism and secrecy surrounding 43 into sharp relief.
His inaugural address spoke beautifully to this moment. It did everything it should have done: soothed our fears, excited our hopes, and perhaps will eventually inspire the best of us. That is no small job for a speech that must be everything to everybody. You can view it again and read the text on the BBC.
President Obama was right to challenge us--all of us--in the speech because one thing is clear now: Those of us on the left will have to accept compromise and disappointment as he and his team forge solutions. And we must work with him to do it. We all have to partake of the tough choices ahead: on health care, military spending, climate change, financial restoration and a host of other serious problems. Tuesday we woke from a long sleepwalk. America has to start living within its means.
Tom Paine started off his pamphlet The Crisis with these words:
"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value."
And W.? One last thing: You would not even have made a good vice president.
I was very skeptical of Barack Obama until well into the primary season because of his inexperience, but his every move over the summer and fall won me over: the discipline, the intelligence, the seriousness and lack of drama, the move towards solving our problems and away from partisan (and intra-mural) squabbling. His acceptance speech in Grant Park and the transition to the White House were further evidence of, at the very least, a basic competence that was like a tonic, throwing the cronyism and secrecy surrounding 43 into sharp relief.
His inaugural address spoke beautifully to this moment. It did everything it should have done: soothed our fears, excited our hopes, and perhaps will eventually inspire the best of us. That is no small job for a speech that must be everything to everybody. You can view it again and read the text on the BBC.
President Obama was right to challenge us--all of us--in the speech because one thing is clear now: Those of us on the left will have to accept compromise and disappointment as he and his team forge solutions. And we must work with him to do it. We all have to partake of the tough choices ahead: on health care, military spending, climate change, financial restoration and a host of other serious problems. Tuesday we woke from a long sleepwalk. America has to start living within its means.
Tom Paine started off his pamphlet The Crisis with these words:
"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value."
And W.? One last thing: You would not even have made a good vice president.
posted by Hallovian at 6:01 PM
1 Comments:
And yet 40something % of voters were willing to vote for a ticket with Sarah Palin on it and went through who knows what kind of "mental" gymnastic to justify her place there. Who knows how many of those people will support her to run against Obama in 2012. Obama will be able to do nothing for this country with the slack-jawed electorate voting for anyone who slings a few snakes around a crowd speaking in tongues or claims to be "just like us". We're doomed. Almost 50% of the people would rather dream of living in the past than figure out what we should do to make a better future.
Why provide our children with early parental contact, schooling, and healthcare that makes them stronger and successful adults, when we can keep them as ignorant debt-sheep that enrich the one half of one percent of the population that serve as our economic feudal overlords?
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