Thursday, November 6, 2008

WELCOME BACK

To be completely honest I still don't really know what to say. I'm still recovering from hearing Chris Matthews call Howard Dean "John the Baptist". Once they called Pennsylvania, it was over. For me, anyway. What? I'm still thinking strictly in terms of campaign strategy. No. I have not completely wrapped my head around all this yet.

Tim Russert died. Studs died. Toot died just yesterday. My god, the horror. Yesterday? How long ago was yesterday? My Uncle Jack died a few days ago. I never got to stick it in his face that the president was one of ours. You crazy bigot. I hope your watching all this.

And imagine, it was only just a few days ago he found out God was black.


We beat Sarah Palin. This time.

John McCain will never be president of the United States. Man, you really took a big shit on this one. You let your whole campaign be overrun with McCarthyite xenophobic scumbags, and they ate you alive. Thats how you chose to go out? Wow. Talk about lack. How ridiculously tragic. I will forever remember the moment where you stood in front of that gigantic crowd of backwoods psychopaths and defended your opponent as a decent man to resounding boos. They boo'd you. And you could see the horror in your face when you realized you were on the wrong side of history. When you saw in yourself that you would not, in the end, be the master of your own destiny. When you discovered your chariot was a cauldron. You would be the effigy of ghouls. You lead the parade to your own devouring. All your angels were predatory birds. And, as we can only pray to assume, it did not necessarily have to be that way. My sincerest regards, John McCain.

What will become of Joe Liebermann? The Clintons? The Neo-cons? The Banks? Before they spend eternity wrapping their wagons around the tightest circles of hell? I think of Orwell's Barcelona, when he looked around the great spirited city after the revolution and soberly wondered to himself what had become of the ruling classes. Of course! They buried their jewelry. They threw on overalls. They raised fists and railed against their former masters, wherever they were. When the wolves eat the sheep, they climb right in the wool.

And what will become of Barack Obama? The smartest man to run for president since FDR, since Lincoln? I have no idea. My expectations are guarded. But, at least, we will now get the opportunity to see. What can a leader do? What can a people do? Their interests rarely coincide. We should not be disarmed by faith. Obama does not have a trademark on idealism or hope. We can not allow him to be defined as the furthest frontier of progress. We build that bridge. It belongs to us. But we all stand on its ledge now, together, and the charge of building that more perfect union has been put in the President-elect's hands. He owes something substantial to the movement that elected him to the most powerful position not just in the country, but in the world. And most importantly, we owe it to each other to make good on our hopes in the engine of service and advocacy. It is an embarrassing time to be a cynic.

P.S. I have received at least seven different messages from friends this morning, all of them wildly concerned that I might have gotten drunk last night. For the record, I did have one beer and to be honest, I finished it. And I still fear drunk.

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