We Have a Winner
I must say that November 4th seems a lot more than a week ago. Can you say "roller-coaster"? I feel like I inadvertently got snagged by a shuttle-launch. Of course the inevitable aftermath of a euphoria-high is the re-entry.I'm still smiling and giddy, mind you, and finding myself more outgoing with the happier faces downtown, but there are these stables that Turdblossom, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Fredo, et al filled to the rafters with their excreta that will be no fun for us to clean out. Intriguing, btw, to note that the shrub nicknaming thing, which I have always perceived as distastefully rude, classic bullying behavior typical of one with self-esteem "issues," and devastatingly - and truly character-definingly - inappropriate for one in a position of (supposed) authority - did not include Cheney and Rumsfeld. I base that assertion on my inability to recall a nickname for either and their absence here. These may be two who he could not bully or intimidate and thus feared. With good reason - they are uber-bullies.
Ladies and gentleman, attention please
Come in close so everyone can see
I got a tale to tell
A listen don't cost a dime
And if you believe that we're gonna get along just fine.
("Snake Oil," S. Earle)
Josh at Talking Points has an interesting post speculating on what might have been some analogously roller-coaster-ian changes of direction (they have another name, as I vaguely recall, like "inflection-point" when you're doing The Calculus) in the course of the election:
Looking back over the campaign, everyone now seems to see that there were a few key moments when John McCain did things that surrendered whatever chance he had to beat Barack Obama. At the top of the list has to be the choice of Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential nominee -- a choice that seemed fatal from the first for those who had eyes to see it, and soon revealed itself as such over the concluding weeks of the campaign. And McCain staffer and alter-ego Mark Salter is now conceding that the campaign suspension is probably another.
But what is easy to miss in these key moments is that most of them weren't simply what McCain did but how Obama reacted -- and the critical synergy between the two.
The campaign suspension was the key example.
It wasn't just that McCain suspended his campaign (and tried to postpone the debate). That wasn't the point at all. He unilaterally suspended his campaign and dared Obama not to suspend his. That was the key. Either Obama had to follow McCain's lead and suspend his campaign or reveal himself as the self-serving, all-about-himself, unpatriotic freak McCain's campaign had spent so many millions of dollars to portray him as. It was a classic play at the Republicans' 'bitch-slap' theory of electoral politics, with all the gendered weight and macho-hierarchy-setting the unlovely phrase implies.
But Obama didn't budge. I think there were a lot of Democrats who were really worried that McCain had put Obama in some kind of box or that Obama would see it as such and react accordingly. But he didn't.
And it went from McCain bigfooting Obama (with all that would have entailed), to Obama turning the stunt around on McCain. It undermined one of McCain's key selling points against Obama -- that he was tougher, more seasoned under pressure -- and further cemented the image of a man who was erratic and showed questionable judgments under pressure.
Indeed. We not only have a lovable, for-all-of-us (except perhaps most of the bigots, hate-mongers, and Palin-lovers, apology for redundancy) president, we also have one who is cool under fire, and possibly even Lincoln-like in his tendency to hold back when necessary.
Versus that other guy, nasty, tantrum-prone, fantasizing that somehow barely graduating, crashing multiple planes, and being incarcerated equates to something like leadership, and so conspicuously unable to stick to or even clearly explain a position. On anything.
And Arianna Huffington offers this well-earned encomium, to him and to us, under title involving "Double Play," I guess meaning doing a Lincoln and an FDR:
"On or about December 1910," Virginia Woolf wrote, "human character changed.'' We can be much more specific: "On November 4, 2008, just after 11 pm Eastern, America changed" (human character remains rather intransigent).
The change was driven by two things: our country's remarkable capacity for regeneration, and Barack Obama's remarkable ability to tap into the better angels of our nature.
You know something extraordinary is happening when even Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and Joe Lieberman trip over themselves -- and their hastily discarded invective -- to say nice things about Obama and the "tremendous signal" sent by his election.
Sure, it's easy to see their encomiums as purely tactical attempts not to be on the wrong side of history, but they are more than that. They also demonstrate how certain moments and certain individuals are able to bring the best out in people -- even people who have shown us some of the worst aspects of human character. Because, hard though it may be to accept, the best and the worst reside in each of us, side-by-side.
As Alexander Solzhenitsyn put it: "The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart." And the greatest leaders are those who inspire us to reside on the good side of Solzhenitsyn's line.
Obama does more. As David Brooks wrote recently, Obama's fractured childhood "is supposed to produce a politician with gaping personal needs and hidden wounds. But over the past two years, Obama has never shown evidence of that."
Here is someone whose childhood could have easily led to a life in shambles. But Obama has somehow -- and without, as far as we know, thousands of hours of therapy --succeeded in not letting circumstances dictate his life and reactions.
During the campaign, Obama was an object lesson in equanimity. Insinuate he's Muslim or sympathizes with terrorists, and he brushes off the mud. Hammer him with trumped up charges -- "sexist," "socialist," un-American" -- and he rolls with the punches. He simply doesn't let it in. He demonstrates that we have the ability to master whether we allow setbacks and attacks to throw us off course.
A lot has been written about Obama's calm in the face of adversity over the course of the last 21 months. Less noted has been how he displays that same centeredness in the face of triumph.
On Tuesday night, he could have waxed transcendent, he could have wrung every last tear and every last cheer out of the adoring crowd at Grant Park. But he chose not to. Instead, his speech gracefully touched the clouds a few times then soberly came back to earth, focused, as always with Obama, on moving forward.
To their great credit, the American people have responded to Obama's example by remaining remarkably focused as well. Despite the seemingly endless parade of meaningless sideshows trotted out during both the primaries and the general campaign, the public refused to be distracted. These kinds of tactics had worked well in 2004 -- but not in 2008. Obama's focus, his sense of purpose cleared a path through the carnival of clownish attacks and chamber of horror scares. And voters followed.
After eight years in which it has felt like the very foundation of our country was under assault, it is a testament to our democracy's inherent capacity for regeneration -- our ability to course-correct -- that Americans responded the way they did to a campaign so premised on an appeal to our greater selves.
A country can change only to the extent that the individuals within it change (and some changes come slower than others, as evidenced by Prop 8 and the other gay marriage bans that passed on Tuesday).
So it's back to Solzhenitsyn: "If you wanted to change the world, who should you begin with: yourself or others?"
Our president-elect is obsessed with Lincoln, who changed the country both by changing government policy and by using the bully pulpit to help us change ourselves. And our president-elect is endlessly being compared to FDR, who ga
ve us both the New Deal and one of the most famous life lessons in history: "The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself."
Now it's Obama's turn to pull off this rare presidential double play.
Looking back over the campaign, everyone now seems to see that there were a few key moments when John McCain did things that surrendered whatever chance he had to beat Barack Obama. At the top of the list has to be the choice of Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential nominee -- a choice that seemed fatal from the first for those who had eyes to see it, and soon revealed itself as such over the concluding weeks of the campaign. And McCain staffer and alter-ego Mark Salter is now conceding that the campaign suspension is probably another.
But what is easy to miss in these key moments is that most of them weren't simply what McCain did but how Obama reacted -- and the critical synergy between the two.
The campaign suspension was the key example.
It wasn't just that McCain suspended his campaign (and tried to postpone the debate). That wasn't the point at all. He unilaterally suspended his campaign and dared Obama not to suspend his. That was the key. Either Obama had to follow McCain's lead and suspend his campaign or reveal himself as the self-serving, all-about-himself, unpatriotic freak McCain's campaign had spent so many millions of dollars to portray him as. It was a classic play at the Republicans' 'bitch-slap' theory of electoral politics, with all the gendered weight and macho-hierarchy-setting the unlovely phrase implies.
But Obama didn't budge. I think there were a lot of Democrats who were really worried that McCain had put Obama in some kind of box or that Obama would see it as such and react accordingly. But he didn't.
And it went from McCain bigfooting Obama (with all that would have entailed), to Obama turning the stunt around on McCain. It undermined one of McCain's key selling points against Obama -- that he was tougher, more seasoned under pressure -- and further cemented the image of a man who was erratic and showed questionable judgments under pressure.
Indeed. We not only have a lovable, for-all-of-us (except perhaps most of the bigots, hate-mongers, and Palin-lovers, apology for redundancy) president, we also have one who is cool under fire, and possibly even Lincoln-like in his tendency to hold back when necessary.
Versus that other guy, nasty, tantrum-prone, fantasizing that somehow barely graduating, crashing multiple planes, and being incarcerated equates to something like leadership, and so conspicuously unable to stick to or even clearly explain a position. On anything.
And Arianna Huffington offers this well-earned encomium, to him and to us, under title involving "Double Play," I guess meaning doing a Lincoln and an FDR:
"On or about December 1910," Virginia Woolf wrote, "human character changed.'' We can be much more specific: "On November 4, 2008, just after 11 pm Eastern, America changed" (human character remains rather intransigent).
The change was driven by two things: our country's remarkable capacity for regeneration, and Barack Obama's remarkable ability to tap into the better angels of our nature.
You know something extraordinary is happening when even Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and Joe Lieberman trip over themselves -- and their hastily discarded invective -- to say nice things about Obama and the "tremendous signal" sent by his election.
Sure, it's easy to see their encomiums as purely tactical attempts not to be on the wrong side of history, but they are more than that. They also demonstrate how certain moments and certain individuals are able to bring the best out in people -- even people who have shown us some of the worst aspects of human character. Because, hard though it may be to accept, the best and the worst reside in each of us, side-by-side.
As Alexander Solzhenitsyn put it: "The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart." And the greatest leaders are those who inspire us to reside on the good side of Solzhenitsyn's line.
Obama does more. As David Brooks wrote recently, Obama's fractured childhood "is supposed to produce a politician with gaping personal needs and hidden wounds. But over the past two years, Obama has never shown evidence of that."
Here is someone whose childhood could have easily led to a life in shambles. But Obama has somehow -- and without, as far as we know, thousands of hours of therapy --succeeded in not letting circumstances dictate his life and reactions.
During the campaign, Obama was an object lesson in equanimity. Insinuate he's Muslim or sympathizes with terrorists, and he brushes off the mud. Hammer him with trumped up charges -- "sexist," "socialist," un-American" -- and he rolls with the punches. He simply doesn't let it in. He demonstrates that we have the ability to master whether we allow setbacks and attacks to throw us off course.
A lot has been written about Obama's calm in the face of adversity over the course of the last 21 months. Less noted has been how he displays that same centeredness in the face of triumph.
On Tuesday night, he could have waxed transcendent, he could have wrung every last tear and every last cheer out of the adoring crowd at Grant Park. But he chose not to. Instead, his speech gracefully touched the clouds a few times then soberly came back to earth, focused, as always with Obama, on moving forward.
To their great credit, the American people have responded to Obama's example by remaining remarkably focused as well. Despite the seemingly endless parade of meaningless sideshows trotted out during both the primaries and the general campaign, the public refused to be distracted. These kinds of tactics had worked well in 2004 -- but not in 2008. Obama's focus, his sense of purpose cleared a path through the carnival of clownish attacks and chamber of horror scares. And voters followed.
After eight years in which it has felt like the very foundation of our country was under assault, it is a testament to our democracy's inherent capacity for regeneration -- our ability to course-correct -- that Americans responded the way they did to a campaign so premised on an appeal to our greater selves.
A country can change only to the extent that the individuals within it change (and some changes come slower than others, as evidenced by Prop 8 and the other gay marriage bans that passed on Tuesday).
So it's back to Solzhenitsyn: "If you wanted to change the world, who should you begin with: yourself or others?"
Our president-elect is obsessed with Lincoln, who changed the country both by changing government policy and by using the bully pulpit to help us change ourselves. And our president-elect is endlessly being compared to FDR, who ga
ve us both the New Deal and one of the most famous life lessons in history: "The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself."Now it's Obama's turn to pull off this rare presidential double play.
We come on the ship they call the Mayflower
We come on the ship that sailed the moon
We come in the age's most uncertain hour and sing an American tune
But it's all right, it's all right
You can't be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow's going to be another working day
And I'm trying to get some rest
That's all I'm trying to get some rest.
("American Tune," P. Simon)
Not to put too fine a point on it, "working day" applies to me, but not co-residents or clients.
posted by Sir Gumbo at 9:31 PM
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