Like many others, I am happy that a black man has become president, if for no other reason than it may remove “racist” from the string of epithets America haters throw at us. In Africa last week, I told a national leader that racism was no longer a force in our society, and that the issue was not whether a black could be elected president, but whether this particular man was worthy of the presidency. And that remains to be seen. I certainly hope he is.
What if he fails? What effect, if any, would that have on racial questions? I don’t know, but it worries me a bit. But only a bit. Other things worry me more.
Obama will now have to do something he’s never done before: manage a huge, complicated, and very fractious organization. Up until now he’s only had to manage friends and followers. He goes in with many advantages, above all the huge Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. But he faces enormous problems, both at home and abroad, and even a highly experienced president would have a tough time. He now has to make decisions of all sorts, from personnel to policies. We’ll soon see his Cabinet, which will tell us a lot about “the real Obama.”
Was Joe Biden right when he predicted a major crisis within six months? And did he know anything about Obama’s response to it when he (Biden) said to the faithful, “you’re not gonna like it”? We’ll know more when he names his national security adviser and his secretary of state.
Will Obama really go down the redistributionist path? I think he probably will. I think he’s convinced himself that he can make anything work, even an economic system that has bankrupted some very rich countries. We’ll know more when he names his Treasury Secretary and the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.
Governing is very different from legislating or giving speeches. As often as not, presidents end up doing things they denounced during their campaigns, and, often as not, that’s a good thing. But it’s very hard, and very rare, that anyone in a high position in the executive branch learns something fundamental about the world. There just isn’t time for it. Kissinger once said that you usually come out of office with the same cultural baggage you carried in. Let’s hope this president is different, because the culture he seems to have is ill-suited to the world he’s going to be asked to lead.
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16 Comments
1. fedupwidstupid:DISMAYED n DESPONDENT. Maverick’s come to naught. and a naught is in office.
Nov 5, 2008 - 12:23 am 2. Anthony (Los Angeles):Maybe it’s because it’s late and I’ve developed a case of insomnia, but I can’t help but feel we made a terrible choice tonight. We face an increasingly dangerous world, and yet we elected a man who has no (real) experience of it. I hope I’m wrong (just as I was wrong about tonight’s election), but I don’t know.
Meanwhile, anyone else think that, after their experience of him in the campaign, Biden will have a muzzle placed on him for the next four years?
Nov 5, 2008 - 3:13 am 3. Joh Adams:All Hail Premier Hussein!
The government of the USSA (United Soviet States of Amerika) will be by after Jan 09 to confiscate any excess cash and property you that might have laying around. Be prepared to smile for the cameras and be “neighborly”!
Remember: Democrats have what it takes..To take what you have!
Nov 5, 2008 - 5:44 am 4. tree_city:“I am happy that a black man has become president, if for no other reason than it may remove “racist” from the string of epithets America haters throw at us.” Did you read this before you posted? All anyone has to do is read the breakdown (no pun intended) of voting patterns to see virtually all of the black population voted for Obama. Only the addition of a significant minority of other races keeps this election from being completely racist!!!
Nov 5, 2008 - 6:03 am 5. tree_city:Now it’s time to start to get honest about race relations starting with the black side – if they only knew how seldom white folks even think of or consider race at all they would be shocked! It’s not a factor. This was not a white versus black contest from the white side. I actually said to my friends, I wish both candidates were black! Then maybe people of both races would see that it’s agenda, character, and qualifications that matter. But not this time apparently. America is bigger than this, now maybe with some honesty we can get beyond the 1950s with this race thing.
Nov 5, 2008 - 6:12 am 6. Carl Sesar:We’ll just have to wait and see.
Nov 5, 2008 - 8:45 am 7. David W. Lincoln:See what?
His birth certificate, of course.
Michael, isn’t standing up for those things that Judah HaNasi, Cicero, amongst others have stood up for.
There is more to life that what people sense, and just laws are rooted in eternity.
As for the charge of being racist, why not take the view that it says more about the accuser. Plus the accuser is cheating everyone, especially themselves.
People deserve the governments they get, so Obama’s crew had better make nice with Venezuela so that the poor aren’t hard off when Alberta sells its oil to others than the United States. For as far as I am concerned, the gargoyles with selective vision will not take into consideration why the Kyoto Koolaid being peddled is in the worst interests of planet earth.
Nov 5, 2008 - 9:49 am 8. dan:my fear is that, like khruschev with kennedy, everyone will be so happy to declare the nice new american president the winner that… our enemies will *let* him win.
that operation might have been substitled: kennedy can have his “victory” – if we can have Cuba.
the cuban missile crisis was supposedly a great victory for kennedy, but in reality it resulted in American guarantees for Cuban sovereignty and the withdrawal of missiles from Turkey. this in exchange for the withdrawal of Soviet missiles placed there only a few months before. but, against the drama of armaggedon, khruschev allowed kennedy his public relations victory – thereby securing a valuable base for Soviet subversion throughout the Western hemisphere and Africa that continues to operate to this day. in fact it was only 30 years after the event that the world learned Kennedy had had to give up the Turkish IRBMs.
whether khruschev really intended this all along, or simply wound up with a good result, is unknowable, but it is also immaterial. the example is useful, because i’m afraid our enemies will figure out how to manufacture crises, allow Obama an escape hatch that will make it look like he fulfilled his promise and resolved the situation both peacefully and to the benefit of America (or at least to both sides), but in reality our enemy will have gained a serious, perhaps irrevocable strategic advantage.
it is apparent to our enemies that our media, our academics, our democrats, our state department, and our CIA all devoutly wish for peaceful resolutions. unfortunately it is very easy to give them what they want – or to appear to. also unfortunately, politicians are usually satisfied with mere appearance if it redounds to their benefit.
(why do you *really* think the international aggression was so flagrant? because everyone knew Bush wouldn’t indulge them in any of their disinformation *diplomacy.*)
Nov 5, 2008 - 10:26 am 9. antony douglas:How the Dems would react to a hostage or terrorist outrage is still the real unknown. They would feel it was so unfair to them,(they would still blame Bush/Cheney as the root cause of course!).
Nov 5, 2008 - 1:20 pm 10. winston:Look@Carter/Clinton(Somalia,Kosovo,Iran)for pointers as how President Obama will calm the waters and bring harmony where there is discord… Everybody is happy to see the joy that He brings to His people,but when the real world intrudes,which it will,sending for the Community Activist in chief may not just cut it.Interesting times indeed,Goodnight an good luck.
It’s a very sad day for me. I hope this is not the beginning of the decline of America. Indeed, I think we conservatives are now at war with Islamists and radical liberals who have now taken over the congress, senate and the white house. We’re at a state of war. I wish your kids well under the command of a radical junior senator. holy cow!
Nov 5, 2008 - 2:10 pm 11. JED:If we were positive enough to think that Obama is on an upward learning curve now, wait until he gets to the situation room at the White House and is briefed on the morning reports of what the world is really like. He will get to read what the press would never know or tell. How do you think that presidents age so quickly in office? How will his happy happy hopefullness stand up to the threats report? That just might be a change.
Nov 5, 2008 - 2:17 pm 12. LeaNder:If one considers what a horrible mess the so-called experienced have left, isn’t it fine the US has a president again and no “king” among his “experienced” courtiers?
Nov 6, 2008 - 9:39 am 13. Michael Lonie:No LeaNder, it is not. The economic mess traces back to government policies that Obama and his pals want to extend far beyond what brought us here. In international affairs and the war everybody is complaining because the Bush Administration had to act to clean up fifty years of thinking that everything was OK so long as we could tell ourselves that there was “stability” in the Middle East. The Iran problem traces back to Jimmy Carter’s feckless lack of a spine. That was the result of the same kind of delusions that Obama brings to his view of international affairs. You think that is going to have good results?
Bush was villified for acting responsibly in America’s interests and in the interest of some kind of half-way decent order in the world. The people who villified him were childish. Obama and his pals come into office seeking to act like children, without responsibility. They have not the character to face up to reality, the way Bush and his administration did. They are going to learn a terrible lesson, at a high price. “Yes, every little drummer ‘ad ‘is rights and wrongs to mind, and we ‘ad to pay for learning, and we paid.”
Nov 6, 2008 - 10:44 pm 14. Alireza:I knew not ALL Iranians are Republican!
Iranian composer Farshid Amin has writen a great song called ‘Pray with me’ which was performed at a gala for Barack Obama two weeks ago. Lionel Richie and The Pointer Sisters also submited songs but Farshid’s was
chosen. He was invited to perform the song on election night at the Democratic Victory Gala in Orange County. He is the first Iranian singer
ever to perform on election night. Check it out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaibPD0658c
Nov 7, 2008 - 5:22 pm 15. The City Troll:A message to the RNC, Time to begin the PURGE
The Victory of President-Elect Barack the Obamanation can be blamed and laid squarely at the feet of the RNC and our leaders in Congress,
It has been said from the beginning that McCain should not have been our choice, but the RNC staged the Primaries so that it could be no other. After all it was his turn.
What has it cost us? A man who palls around with terrorists and is a student and a believer in the teachings of Marx is now our President.
A man who has pledged to cut Billions from the military budget in the middle of a war, and who will systemically dismantle the greatest medical system in the world will have free reign, with a congress that believes they can run the banks and the Oil Business at least as well as they have run Medicare and Social Security.
What were we told conservatism is dead! It can’t win only elections run on bipartisan middle of the grounders can, yet where conservative ideas were on the ballot they won. Even in California Gay Marriage was defeated. I am sure that will last until The Obamanation appoints his two supreme court judges.
The Party must pay for this debacle. It is time for the party to split in two or be purged of the Rinos that now are in charge,
No where did they fight on the principles of the Constitution, no where did they point out the tell tale problems that our new President represented as the threat they are to our freedoms and economic system.
We must pledge NO support to the fools that now represent us. They had the power to fight this battle and chose not to.
The only people that spoke out were the ones on the Radio and their voices are now about to be silenced by the fairness doctrine.
There are 57 Million people who voted against the oncoming onslaught, and millions more who would have if they were given a reason or a person to stand behind.
We the base, the believers in the constitution and who understand the difference between right and wrong must now mobilize to prevent the destruction of our nation.
Nov 7, 2008 - 6:18 pm 16. Doug Cullen:RNC
“In Africa last week, I told a national leader that racism was no longer a force in our society”
You did? Really? Who? Name names and what do you base this bold and assumptive statement on? My observation has been that this election has brought the festering racism under the surface of our society to light like sunshine on pimples. I have never recieved so many racist e-mails at work or heard so many new racist jokes as I have this last week. It’s really distrubing because many are from people I never would have suspected. I think the the White vote count says it all. It was one a very few demographics that Obama lost. Why do think that is?
Nov 9, 2008 - 11:11 pm