Those interested in current events, in politics and governing, generally fall into one of two camps. One is for preserving that which already exists, and the other is for changing that status quo we've endured for so long.
Last year I voted for Barack Obama twice; in both the primary of my state and in the general election. Granted, I wasn't deeply enamored of the man. At my age one looks at their tattered posterior and realizes that believing political promises is like reclining upon a chainsaw. A painful disappointment to say the least.
A great motive for voting for Obama was Senator McCain and especially his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin. To me, they represented a status quo that was a greased toboggan headed for the abyss. After 8 years of the Bush administration, fear and doubt were put up against the "audacity of hope" promised by the senator from Illinois.
While many have analyzed President Obama's first 100 days, I've been thinking over the 20,000+ days I've traveled around the sun. After many mistakes and good decisions; after planned adventures and unplanned disasters, I've reached the conclusion that Karl Marx was sort of right about the masses. Something acts as an opiate. Marx said religion, but many things have evolved that keep the eyes of the masses wandering from that which is being done to them. Like that song from O Brother Where Art Thou?..."Go to sleep little baby"...is being sung as a lullaby to put us all back to sleep for another four years.
As during the short tenure of JFK, the Best and the Brightest have come to Washington. They have much more intellectual vigor than did the Bush people. Plus, the Democrats as a whole have become the party of answers....even for questions not being asked.
Let's be honest, if that's possible. Barack Obama was elected to the presidency out of hope (for a better-run government) and fear (to avoid an economic catastrophe). One could list many things he was NOT elected for. But, suddenly "mandates" take on a weird cloak of having been obvious to the voters while at the same time they were quite invisible.
To this particular voter, President Obama was sent to the White House for that hope for a better tomorrow. NOT for gay marriage. NOT to rescue a handful of greedy, spoiled, stupid, and incessantly demanding bankers. NOT to pay for the largesse to Wall St. on the backs of those whose Social Security has been daily stolen from them ever since the Greenspan Commission in 1983. NOT to completely devastate an already weakened economy by a vainglorious experiment known as "cap and trade." NOT to provide middle class health care benefits for children on the backs of the poorest quintile of income earners in the nation.
When running for his second term in 1936, Franklin Roosevelt said in a speech, "Let it be said that in my first term the forces of greed met their match. Let it be said that in my second term they met their master." Barack Obama is no enemy of the forces of greed. He, unlike FDR, will not be a "traitor to his class." He is a chameleon; he appears to be whatever people think they want to see. And sadly, like many other politicians, one must not pay too much attention to his words, but his deeds.
Ms. Pelosi, and Mr.'s Waxman, Reid, Durbin, et al will succeed over time in doing more to help the fortunes of the Republican Party than anyone else. President Obama is in there with them, more concerned with the Democratic Leadership Council than the average Joe/Jane Slob who trudged down to the polls to perform that sacred duty of voting. For hope. For change. Yes, this time...this time....we can.
God help us all.
