The Rising ...
The great farce of the GOP, which soon became the tragedy of the nation and the world, was to actually govern. They would have been so much better off to retain their natural role as carping cranks, spreading disinformation at every turn, making up scandals for the other guys, proliferating and hiding their own, occasionally impeaching presidents. But they made the mistake of actually seizing power, after which an entire world could see what they’re really about, the destructiveness of their policies, their breathtaking arrogance, as well as their astonishing incompetence at providing for the basic functions of governance.
Obama By Landslide (OBL for short) is, satisfyingly, on the cards. That Barack Hussein Obama will front the massive tide sweeping back the regressive faces of a putrescent regime supported and populated by war criminals pleases me no end.
Why?
I like the guy. He has a pleasing manner, a balanced outlook, and is extremely intelligent. More, having carried the prospect of the presidency with such grace and ease, one suspects he was born to lead.
How the hell the farce that has played out in the media can be spun as a democratic election is beyond me. Palin and McCain were never in it. They made a mockery of electoral politics, offered no opposition whatsoever, and contributed only in that they fed the money-and-resource guzzling addiction of the sick and sordid.
As a stand-in for electoral opposition, the Palin-McCain ticket has been thoroughly unpleasant, insulted global intelligence, given Americans a bad name, and has served only to remind us how dumb Joe the Plumber and his compatriots are.
And if anybody had any doubts as to whether Palin was a joke in bad taste, she's finally dispelled all such doubt.
It's also highlighted, in small part, just how much damage has been inflicted on the globe by a criminally murderous and rapacious Republican regime over eight years.
More of the same? I think not. Were McCain to take it, the U.S. and other economies would disappear overnight. The world has tired of business as usual and demands change.
Is Obama a change for the better? Yes. Superficially so, but yes he is. Think Bill Clinton before Ken Starr. Think Clinton during his 100-day honeymoon. It was all good news from the networks then and, while we can't expect the same result (a budget surplus), the demise of a carping, bitching, and whining radical right will prove as much change and deliver as much benefit as a much-needed holiday.
Beyond style and presentation, who knows?
Obama faces a changed government confronting an economy that has, despite fictive Wall Street rallies, flatlined. (I'll take a side bet on Paulson pulling down the markets before he's run out of town — if, indeed, he is.) How the hell can the fiction papering the pretense be sustained for another four years?
It can't. The U.S. has done everything but renege on repaying its foreign debt and even that can't be too far off.
Facing a better-informed electorate and a more intelligent and discerning constituency, Obama knows he has to fix a financial system beyond fixing. Is he capable of turning the infrastructure bequeathed him by a gutted fiscus and increasingly rabid fractional-reserve banking system into a working, solvent, and growing economy?
I think he is. However, whether he's willing to take on those benefitting from a system impoverishing 95 percent of the world's population, only time will tell.
For now, though, forget any thoughts of a honeymoon. Time's not on his side.
I suppose we can’t entirely blame them for their own self-destruction. I mean, who knew that imploding economies, drowning cities, oceans of debt, disastrous wars based on lies, alienation of centuries-old allies, dismantling of Social Security, falling worker salaries, rising costs, diminishing healthcare, a massive terrorist attack while the president was on vacation, the national shame of torture, or catastrophic environmental disaster – who knew these would be unpopular policies?
David Michael Green | The Implosion of John McCain and the Demise of the Regressive Right
By the by, this post is for those who — like Frank Paynter and Tamar Jacobson — have been used their blogs to relentlessly punt the Obama-Biden ticket because they know Americans are better than the twisted remnants of the GOP.
From Moscow to Melkbos to Melbourne, thank you.
