It is here that we all find ourselves: subjected by the puppeteers to all the disingenuous posturing that the "objective" media can shell out (funny how none of them appear to be on the fence).
Amen.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Dissin' Franchises
The Democratic National Committee apparently decided it made sense to open their convention with a prayer. This is merely the latest in a string of back-peddling, centering gestures that have seen me gradually retreat from the excitement I originally felt at the prospect of Barrack Obama winning his bid to become the forty-fourth presidency of the United States. Visceral rage now tempered by conversations with the like-minded individuals in my cabinet (which convenes infrequently at best and usually via cell phone), I'm not merely disenfranchised (back where I started). The framework of their assurances had loomed beyond the reaches of my comprehension yesterday when I first learned of the prayer. These assurances - to a degree - have steadied my modest political hand. I wish the democrats (notice I abstain from referring to them as "my party") could embody diversity and tolerance through dogma and policy rather than an apparently essential dog and pony show. At this point, the institutional turmoil having been cast aside by the results of the primary election (and unwittingly giving way now to ego-maniacal in-fighting and consequent media frenzy), the goals are now changed. No longer are democrats anointing their presidential candidate from amongst themselves. Currently targeted are the skeptics wavering inexplicably on the fence. Currently targeted are those historically republican voters, hopefully so frustrated by their party's dogged stubbornness that their vote is now up for grabs.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
As much as I love the energy and potential that Obama brings, I remain critical of him and will not allow myself to become complacent in my wariness towards politicians and government in general. For instance his reliance on foreign policy advice from Zbigniew Brzezinski and Dennis Ross.
That being said, a particularly poignant section of Obama's acceptance speech was his statement that change does not come from Washington, rather it comes to Washington.
In this he is not only saying that he will work to change the policies the Republican party has put in place over the last 8 years, but he is also addressing his own party as well. Just because Obama is now at the head of the public wing of the party it doesn't mean that the party itself has changed from what it was when Al Gore and John Kerry lost their respective bids. It is not the party that is winning this election, it is Obama and his team that are ahead of the curve and are carrying the Democrats to victory. On the whole this is a party of woefully inadequate politicians who win mostly because they aren't repulsive Republicans.
This is a long point, but stick with it. In another section, maybe one of the best, Obama made statements such as "Don't tell me..." and "Surely we can..." This is a precursor to the attitude he will bring into the White House when he is told that something must be accomplished using the typical modus operandi of Washington politics. He won't do it that way. He won't move in the same manner that the past has proscribed for him, or any president for that matter.
On the issue of prayer, that won't change, the party is not made up of people who have the vision or the courage to be as bold as we would like. The next eight years will see a transformed Democratic party as a result of the governing style of Barack Obama. The party will get better, but many things will remain, largely as a result of having too big and too diverse a country to have a government that moves very far at all from the center. In the end, that was how it was designed some 230 years ago and it has managed to stick.
Post a Comment