Helplessly Hoping or We Won't Get Fooled Again
One of my favorite movie lines comes from Clockwise, a little-seen John Cleese film: "I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand."
I'm hearing a lot of people saying how great they feel about the government and how wonderful our new President will be. Sometime I even see them physically pull themselves back from a knee-jerk condemnation of how things are run as they remind themselves that the messiah is coming.
Sure, people have overdone the negatives in the past. We had years of absurd hatred of Clinton followed by years of absurd hatred of Bush. As bad as that was, I'd rather have people be suspicious of politics and politicians. Everyone acting like something great is about to happen can be a bit hard to take.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:12 AM
3 Comments:
How long do you think Obama's honeymoon will last? He isn't going to quickly withdraw from Iraq. He is going to send more troops to Afghanistan (whom the Talibam has pledged to start killing at a quicker rate). He won't balance the budget, in fact the deficit will bloom. He may try to do something about health care, but in 6 months, I predictthe competing, complex proposals, with dozens of lobbyests arguing all manner of arcane provisions, will have dismayed the public.And he may have raised tax rates on more people than thought they would experience increased rates.
That said, Obama may be made of the proverbial teflon. The blame blame may land on Nancy Pilosi and Harry Reid. This is assuming Obama doesn't put his foot in it somewhere along the first 100 days.
Well there are honeymoons and there are honeymoons. No doubt as an Obama presidency deals with specifics, his "all things to all people" approach will lead to dissatisfaction. I tend to think this will come more from the ideologues (the lefty ones who will be disappointed and righties who already don't like him) as long as he continues to project an image of progress and activity. Hopefully for Obama, Jeremiah Wright will keep true to his word and slam Obama from time- a few punches from W. Ayers and Jesse Jackson Sr. won't hurt either.
I don't know how long the honeymoon will last, since it depends on so many factors, most beyond the control of Obama. Though with the backing of the press, it'll be easier for him to weather many storms. Also, I don't think Afghanistan will hurt him since he promised (for anyone who was listening) to escalate activity in Afghanistan. And perhaps he's learned from Bill and Hillary about how not to deal with health care and taxes. (In any case, most of the massive changes he wants can be achieved with almost no high profile, controversial bills bills.)
At a party I went to over the weekend, an old woman who just loved Obama told me she thought he could do no wrong (she literally said that) but quickly added she was worried with some of the people he was surrounding himself with. In other words, if things go wrong, it's not his fault.
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