Tolstoy, who liked standing around in the cold as much as the next guy, still wouldn't have thought the inauguration was a very big deal. So what if we changed one president for another?
Tolstoy would remind us that the king is history's slave. An unconscious instrument in the attainment of the aims of humanity, and the higher he stands the more people he's connected with and more evident is the inevitability of his every action. Nothing is the cause. All this is only the coincidence of conditions and the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself.
Yes, when it comes to Obama, Leo Tolstoy would have made a terrible Huffington Post blogger.
He'd be wrong, too. We can't talk about what happened today without conceding that there's at least something to Great Man Theory. Some men are lighting without which the fuel never would have burnt. I'm not talking about Barack Obama. I don't know enough about him, and neither do you. His kids seem nice. I'm talking about George W. Bush.
Could any other single human have changed a world so much in so little time? I don't just mean imagine Al Gore or John Kerry in charge. I mean imagine another Republican. Imagine anyone. Pat Buchanan. Pat Robertson. Pat Sajak.
Okay, Pat Robertson might have been worse. Maybe.
Did George W. Bush participate, passively or actively, in one event that wasn't a monstrous disaster? Did he alter anything except to degrade it? Did he touch one object he didn't break?
Did he make one decision that wasn't disgusting? Did he utter one statement that wasn't a cacophony of vile cant? Did he hire one man who wasn't an incompetent or a criminal?
Okay, this was supposed to be about Obama and hope, and all that. One man can make a difference, maybe. But I keep thinking about how some men change everything by ruining it. And how we might be finished with George W. Bush but George W. Bush isn't finished with us.
Take today for instance, and Barack Obama trying to figure out what John Roberts was trying to say, while Roberts tried but was unable to stumble through a ceremony a Girl Scout could perform. Honestly, how hard was that?
And the inescapable realization:
George W. Bush left his country with a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who couldn't administer a 35-word oath without tripping over his own dick.
John G. Roberts - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Judicial Nominations - Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.
as angry as i am that it happened, it is good to remind america that obama voted against this man showing he always makes the right decision.
flubbing up too.
He was trying to read it and when he looked away, he forgot the words too.
We all get nervous when we do something for the first time, especially when
reading it. It also included extra words on the second line and looked a little confusing. It said I....... do solemnly swear (and in brackets on the second line)
it gave a different choice to use. Looked confusing to me too.
Pres. Bush is gone now. So now comes any other area that he can be
criticized for. Just because he chose J. Roberts he shouldn't be blamed
for that mistake too.
Anyway, Pres. Obama took the oath again today from J. Roberts just so
there wouldn't be any problem with it at a later time.
He is not The Messiah. But he may be the remedy for more than a decade of Republican fantasies about how the world really operates.
Yes, many (if not most) of us do.
Implicit in your question is the (mistaken) belief that Obama somehow was elected because he looks so much better than Chïmpy. While that's true as far as it goes, a more accurate explanation is that Obama also looked so much better than *everyone* else who ran.
But you're not being honest with yourself if you don't consider Bob Geldof's February interview with Bush (freely available at Time.com if this address doesn't work for some reason when pasted into your browser):
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1717934,00.html
No, people aren't just one thing. Makes Bush's presidency more tragic, in a way.
ha!hahahhahahahaha!!!!!!!!!
Proof in the pudding, eh?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS78pJKLLS4&NR=1
LOL...though he must be proud to have one big enough to trip over...