Open Thread

I’m traveling to The Big Apple today, so light posting, at best. Here’s a good essay that is worthy of some discussion. I always had faith. Nothing good ever happens if you don’t have faith.

8 Comments

aarrgghh on November 8, 2008 at 12:36 pm

i was always confident, though that confidence had less to do with obama being a fantastic campaigner who deserves all due credit — and democrats were very lucky in that respect — and much more to do with the inevitability of the republican collapse.

i’ve been playing cassandra about that collapse since before i started blogging almost three years ago, but it was katrina that convinced me its time had finally come. worse was to come but katrina was the tipping point. katrina revealed the bush administration for the potemkin government it is. all optics and no substance.

since the republicans were fated to fall, whomever won the democratic primary would be the next president. november would just be a formality. a recent article from the onion sums up my position over the last few years:

Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress

WASHINGTON — After emerging victorious from one of the most pivotal elections in history, president-elect Barack Obama will assume the role of commander in chief on Jan. 20, shattering a racial barrier the United States is, at long last, shitty enough to overcome.

of course, i was talking about more than the racial aspect. i was talking about the sorry state of the entire country under republican governance (if one can call it that) and the whole idea of a permanent republican majority.

the republicans were also being slowly outraced by looming demographic changes but they crashed and burned because they had a fatal character flaw — their own cynicism:

photo ops and gas rebate bribes and voting fraud certainly won’t do it. but real reform and substantitive legislation will. but that kind of progress can only be made if republicans choose to buck the will of an administration that refuses to change course and if they put up a united front.

but that won’t happen since republicans are too fractured to unite and too cynical and corrupt to invest the energy needed to enact real tangible benefits for the electorate.

so in short, they’re toast. they have bupkis and they know it. they’re gone and no one will cry when they leave.

the republicans were driving the country into the ground. it was only a question of how long the electorate would allow them to continue doing so. well, we just got our answer.

idredit on November 8, 2008 at 1:21 pm

via Ben Smith, Politico

Watch this Video

Senator Obama toasts Rahm Emanuel in 2005

Too funny

aarrgghh on November 8, 2008 at 1:26 pm

since this is an open thread, i’d also like to take the moment to finally dispense with some of the (absurd imho) myths of the camapign season, in no particular order:

mccain steps (or is pushed) off the ticket for romney or huckabee

mccain dumps palin from the ticket

biden steps (or is pushed) off the ticket for clinton

bush/cheney engineers domestic “false flag” attack

bush/cheney cancels elections

bush/cheney banishes liberals and other detritus to fema farms

bush/cheney bombs iran*

republicans intentionally throw the election to the democrats, in order to set them up for losses in 2012 after being unable to deal with the problems bequeathed them

*while this myth predated the campaign, it was nonetheless treated as a “game-changing” election event.

this list is by no means exhaustive; feel free to add your own.

aarrgghh on November 8, 2008 at 1:28 pm

i almost forgot the number one myth of election ’08: pumas!
- dada on November 8, 2008 at 1:30 pm
  
  l would add:
  
  “country first” and “honorable”…in homage to the LOSER!