You know it! (I almost said You betcha!) I was at a party up in Republican territory in La Canada/Flintridge and the 10 of us went out on the lawn at 8:03 and yelled our heads off! I had been there since about 4:30 watching the returns with the host and another fellow, and as the momentum kept building and the other party goers arrived it was incredible. Then the polls closed at 8 PM and in 30 seconds the announcement came across.
McCain had a very commendable speech, I thought--like the old McCain from the 90's--and Obama's was superb. I will never forget for the rest of my life seeing Jessie Jackson in the audience crying with the knowledge of what had taken place. Now all we have to do is wait for the other 25% of the hard core bastards to shrivel up and melt away. I rarely indulge in schadenfreude, but the thought of George W Bush having to live in denial about his crimes and misdemeanors for the rest of his life is almost delicious in irony. He's a dry drunk. He'll show the same behavior towards his presidency and be as unrepentant as Nixon. I visited a couple of conservative websites today and already they are gearing up for the attack. See below #2 which I received from a political acquaintance today:
#1. Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone, "My Campaign Memories"
What makes the Obama story so powerful isn't just the fact that as a half-white, half-black man, his public journey to the top visibly tied together some of the more painful frayed ends of our past. It's that he ran his race with dignity and honor against people who didn't return the favor, facing a succession of opponents who feared losing more than shame and gave in to pretty much every possible temptation to go low and appeal to the worst in us.
I didn't always see it at the time. But thinking back on it now, I realize what an extraordinary accomplishment his getting this far has been. A man who wasn't great would have blown this a hundred times along the way. So would a person who wasn't extremely lucky. The historical seas literally parted for this Obama guy, with inconceivable idiocy and villainy littering the political shores on either side of him as he ascended to the pantheon of all-time American heroes simply by walking straight ahead and not being a dick. [snip]
Year after year, even the president of our country has been consistently too small and too cheap to stand up and face his problems like a grown-up, forever passing the buck to this or that group of Americans. If it wasn't Reagan crying about "freeloaders" or George H.W. Bush blasting the "apologize for America" crowd, it was the Clintons whining about the "vast right-wing conspiracy." [snip]
Let's hope that it says as much about us as it does about the presidency.
The full article has a great illustration of Obama as a Zen master with his eyes closed and forefinger and thumb touching.
2. Email from Bob Meltzer
Last night we won a major battle. The fight, however, continues. The right wing still has far too much power in this country.
Most of us are old enough to remember 1994. That is the year when, after being the minority party in Congress for forty years, the Republicans swept into power. Not only did they sweep into power, they came in with the most ideologically right wing group this country has ever seen. They stayed in power for a dozen years, successfully imposing much of their right wing agenda on the rest of us.
Why did this happen? The year 1994 was a year of peace and prosperity.
There was no catastrophe anywhere in the world to warrant such a legislative change.What happened was the election of centrist Democratic Bill Clinton in 1992. The right wing responded by using their control of the media to bash Clinton day and night. Dittoheads with fire in their eyes took over the water coolers in all offices around the country and ceaselessly expounded their hate of Bill Clinton.
Yet the progressives were complacent. There was no major grassroots movement behind President Clinton, while the Democrats in Congress were
weak and fearful (sound familiar?) Could something like this happen to Barack Obama? It WILL happen if we let it.So today we party and celebrate. Tomorrow we take a reality check and prepare for the next battle. We must keep up the momentum. In the coming
years, President Obama will need us more than ever.
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