Does the political season ever embarrass the hell out of you?
To be honest, I still think Obama will beat McCain (he's up on him 5% right now), but I am not particularly excited about it because I question his ability to change the major problems. I truly believe, as I've always said, that just because he is tall and has a deep voice, he will attract people, even some republicans who are fed up with Bush. I saw a few of them today at a message board who declared they would vote Obama. I can't see McCain outgunning Obama in the debates. I maintain we are looking at a landslide. If Obama can easily power through the statements of his pastor and the continuous replays of Fox news and talk radio trying to milk it for all its worth with hardly a scratch in the polls, the man can weather anything.
It will be nice to listen to someone giving a speech from the oval office who doesn't send shivers of embarrassment up my spine. It will be nice to have a leader who doesn't strut around like a cowboy, and has a more nuanced sensibility. But how did we ever get to this point? How is it that so many people crave being lied to if the lies tell them what they want to hear? "The surge is working", "global warming is a hoax perpetrated by Al Gore and sponsored by the national academy of sciences to get grant money". It gets to the point where it's just not worth listening to anymore. It just amazes me that human beings, being as disinterested in honesty as they are, even got this far with civilization. It surprises me every day that traffic lights direct traffic, and that my paycheck is in the mail every other Friday, and that the salad bar is always well stocked. It always surprises me how everyone pretends to love each other on holidays and then talk behind each others' backs within a week.
Mostly, I hope that Obama unites the country. Conservative talk radio and punditry with it's continuous exaggerations, lies, and hatred of any opinion but it's own has done more to divide and self-destruct this country than any other factor in my opinion. The talk show hosts have mastered the understanding that if you just say something- it becomes true. Politics is not like science where facts and data can trump opinions. In politics just saying something makes it true- "Man made global warming is a hoax, there's no evidence for it", "Obama is a racist", "Liberals hate America" etc... You would be amazed at the sheer volume of citizens who have these ideas ingrained tightly into their being and search desperately for evidence to make them true. They have the AM dial to get it branded into the brains day in and day out as one more straw man argument lures them into accepting a false dichotomy, partitioning off the wild fields of reality into phony caricatured segments which their pea brains can categorize.
I hope that an Obama presidency begins to end this bullshit. I doubt it though.
6 comments:
Until the multi million dollar conservative think tanks and "institutes" shut their doors for lack of funds, I seriously doubt that Obama is going to unite much of anything.
I worry about him on that count. I worry that some 527 assassins are going to lodge a swift boat up Obama's derrière the size of a super-tanker. As Hitchens' article amply demonstrates, they'll have plenty of ammunition. These issues force me to take a second look at Clinton, though it may be too late.
The swift boating will come, but Obama showed he can deal with the reverend wright issue. The people that rehash that stuff and didn't pay attention to his speech would have never voted for him anyways.
Pollsters don't call cell phones. Me and a gazillion other people, especially people in their early
20's, own only a cell phone and are not included in the polls. The polls are obsolete, especially when Obama is rallying the younger generation.
McCain was ahead by 5%. A few days later, nothing happened, and suddenly Obama was ahead 5%. That says alot. People gravitate to the charisma and the effect will only increase when the debates start.
Professor A. James Wray,
You write:
"Me and a gazillion other people, especially people in their early
20's, own only a cell phone and are not included in the polls."
Surely you deigned to condescend to hillbilly grammar and vernacular so as to not overtax the minds of your less mentally robust readers. "Me and a gazillion other people..."
You also seem to imply that you count yourself among the "gazillion" other people "in their early 20's." On the contrary, you're long past the decade of your twenties and, verily, approaching forty like a speeding cruise missile. In brief, you're older, meaner, far more irrational, and fatter than I have EVER seen you before!
We all know who will win the Democratic nomination, and the presidency: Hillary Rodham Clinton, who will serve another eight year term, for which she is preeminently prepared, starting early next year.
Those who vote (which, you will note, is different from "the people") and those who fund votes (the wealthy) will simply purchase the election for the Inevitable Candidate if need be.
Mark my words: one dumb gorilla was quite enough for the Oval Office. We are not going to have two in succession, which resoundingly rules out Ayatollah Saddam Barrack Hussein Yo Mama Obama!
Take your meds.
I'm so very sorry. I meant to say:
Ayatollah Saddam Barrack Hussein Osama Yo Mama Obama.
It's so very difficult to keep that name straight (or gay, as the case may be) in my head.
Comma, fat-so.
Steve, you may get your wish. John McSame has caught up already with both democratic candidates. Appears it may be closer, but there is so much time left. McSame is still drawing the benefits of being the established nominee while the dems are weakening each other with their continued battle. This won't last forever.
You forgot to add-
Ayatollah Saddam Barrack Hussein Osama Yo Mama Obama comma,
Bitch!
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