The government of the state is profoundly important. And I think American voters picked a competent, decent, and sober executive officer. But this is not, headline writers, Barack Obama's America. He is not your leader, any more than the mayor of your town is your leader. We are free people. We lead ourselves. He is set to be a high-ranking public administrator. Sure, there is romance in fame. But romance in politics is dangerous, misplaced, and beneath intelligent people. Were we more fully civilized, we would tolerate the yearnings projected on our leaders. Our tribal nature is not so easily escaped, after all. But we would try to escape it. We would discourage and condemn as irresponsible a romantic politics that tells us that if we all come together and want it hard enough, we’ll get it. We would spot the dangerous fallacy in condemning as "cynicism" all serious attempts to critically evaluate the content of political hopes.-- WILL WILKINSONToday, America is who France would like it to be, because on a historic level, Obama's election represents all of our potential for change, progress and evolution that France finds so attractive. And I think that can be generalized for the world. The quarrels will come not on the level of history, however, but later, when history is brought back down to earth by the urgencies of politics.-- JUDAH GRUNSTEINSo let me see if I understand. If Republicans would just admit that they are racists, bigots and homophobes and stop trying to be nice, they would win more elections. And the conservative movement which stands for less government was somehow validated because California, Florida, Arizona and Arkansas just forced government even farther into people’s bedrooms? And yet all of the conservative pro-life measures (the bread and butter issue for most of that group) failed to pass. So basically the conservative movement has been reduced to Anita Bryant's diary. My, my but how they love their aging beauty queens . . . and we all know that beauty queens are the brightest bulbs on the chandelier.
A friend of mine said a month ago that the money would trump any negative aspects of people's views on race. I agreed with him. I personally didn't believe that the Bradley effect would prevent an Obama victory. I believed that if we were going to see it, we would have seen it much earlier. Obama probably would not have been able to beat Hillary Clinton if race had been as much of a disadvantage as it was thought to have been. That's not to say that race hasn't mattered at all - I myself have written about the impact of race during this election season - but it has mattered perhaps in a very different way than many thought it would.
Obama spent his campaign emphasising similarities, not differences. He galvanised African-Americans, who turned out in record numbers, and white Americans, encouraging everyone to come together and vote for something and someone they believe in. Today the American people, people of all races, spoke loud and clear. This election was won through the collective efforts of Americans of every race.
In today's political climate, a new Treasury Secretary will be as critical as the choices for State and Defense, and whoever it is and the President-Elect will have to get involved in the financial crisis long before Obama raises his hand and takes the oath on January 20th.
-- ROBERT STEINAre people's expectations too high? Maybe. Mine are certainly very high indeed. But I've also learned from Obama over the last 20 months that pacing is important and everything can't happen at once. He has the ball. He establishes the pace of play. The rest of us have to adjust. He'll do this his way.
In the meantime, here are a few matters on which I feel pretty confident. He will obey the US constitution. He'll reject the Bush-Cheney theory of the "unitary executive" and will relinquish some of the executive power they amassed on matters such as domestic surveillance.
Obama's United States will again follow the Geneva conventions. He won't force our intelligence agencies to "cook" their data to make a false case for an unnecessary war. He won't fire US attorneys for refusing to undertake highly political prosecutions. And so on.
I want to see him take on the big issues, and over time he will. But for starters, that's change I can believe in.
President Bush put conservatism in critical condition. A President McCain would have put it out to pasture.
-- JACK HUNTER
After eight years of having Republicans call me an un-American troop-hating fag-loving socialist, after months of John McCain embracing the hate to a level where his own supporters were calling out for Barack Obama to be assassinated, no one is going to be permitted to tell me with a straight face that "oh you know, both sides do it."
Your side was abominable. Your side was hateful. Your side race-baited. Your side gay-baited. Your side lied like we've never seen in recent presidential campaign history. Your side used a tax-cheat who would do better under Obama's tax proposal to be your everyman on the issue of taxes. Your side, in a veiled effort at race-baiting, said Obama doesn't put his country first. Your side had the audacity to call Obama a socialist. Your side suggested he was a Muslim. Your side suggested he was a terrorist. Your side suggested he was Osama bin Laden.
Spare me the crap about how both sides do it. You people are a disgrace, you've been a disgrace for eight long years, and all your hate and lying and venom and vitriol finally bit you in your collective fat ass.
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