Things Could be Worse: It could be President McCain in 3 days

These days, I feel caught in the strangest kind of limbo, suspended somewhere between euphoria and the most utter, bleak despair, and in speaking to the other people around me and even in hearing from friends all over the world, I know I am not alone. Everyone feels irritatingly and ominously hopeful and hopeless, ecstatic and morose.

We all held our collective breath for months, waiting to see if brains would triumph over bluster in the election. They did. Miraculously, we elected Barack Obama. Then, poised on the precipice of hope, the volcano of bad news started erupting and still it comes. We know now that the country Obama will take over from Bozo Inc. in just 3 days is, incomprehensibly, even more of a disaster than we could possibly have imagined. In fact, if I were Obama, I might well cry "foul" over the job description.

Remember at the end of Chinatown, when Faye Dunaway, as the steely, duplicitous, wildly distraught heiress, Evelyn Mulwray, cries, in between slaps: "My daughter, my sister, my daughter, my sister, my sister AND my daughter?" to detective Jake Gittes, explaining her shamefully incestuous relationship to Catherine, the girl in the car? Right now, I think we are all feeling the sting of those slaps as we ricochet and seesaw between emotions. Our shock absorbers are shot. My sister. My daughter. Slap. Only 3 more days to go before we turn the page. What kind of puppy will the Obama kids get? Slap. And how many more billionaires will kill themselves now, in the best of times, the worst of times?Slap!

Still, even in the midst of this gloomy, funereal muddle, perhaps it is worth noting that even with things as bad as they are, with no jobs, no money in our pockets and the forecast for things to get so bad that we are now at the proverbial picnic, things could be worse. Shouldn't we be counting our blessings right about now, and for longer than it takes to say the words "bankruptcy" or "foreclosure"?

It's worth trying to summon a bit of perspective, is it not? After all, if the cards had been dealt just a little bit differently, we would be counting down the days until President McCain's inauguration, just 3 left, not to mention Vice President Palin, you betcha. How grim would that be? Imagine Joe the Plumber preparing to reinstitute shuttle diplomacy right about now (or not), instead of Hillary Clinton. And who would have been Secretary of the Treasury, Howdy Doody Blagojevich?

If our feckless, current and rudderless leader, who claimed several summers back to have read "three Shakespeares," had only been telling the truth, he might well have come upon the words: "So foul a sky clears not without a storm."

Pollyanna Heller I have never been. I was raised, after all, by the very man who created the phrase "Catch-22," along with a glorious woman, my mother. But for both of them, the glass was frequently not even half full, in fact, there was no glass!

Still, Shakespeare was no W. Shakespeare knew his stuff.

The sky could perhaps not be fouler at the moment, true, but the storm that is coming might be in the hands of McCain and Palin 3 days from now, and then where would we be?

We would still have the Gaza, Bernie Madoff, Iraq, China, Russia, Iran, Blago and Ann Coulter, but there might be no hint or hope whatsoever of any possible light on the horizon.

Comments

[Ed438]

I must confess that my fears were far worse than McCain-Palin being elected.

For years, the Bushies gave the appearance of scaring the media and the congress into speechlessness or inaction or having them over a barrel of some sort. So much so they both literally let them have their way in a number of cases: Iraq, torture, Gitmo, wiretapping and other surveillance, (I'm sure we could all think of other things.)

What if these criminals decided they didn't want to leave and simply seized power? What if they decided to attack Iran? There are many other "what ifs"!

As it is, we may simply have lucked out with a president who appeared to have had enough of the job and an ill "Dr. Evil" who has now been reduced to a pathetic old guy in a wheelchair!

With the advent of Barack Obama, I have been able to get over these feelings of helplessness and depression. I hope we never again, as a country, find ourselves in a similar situation!

[Zen0469]

Thank you for an excellent article and for raising a number of interesting points. They stimulate thought and for me that is where the difficulties begin. Don't get me wrong. I'm delighted Bush is gone and that Obama is showing every indication of becoming the strong problem solver that I expect him to be. I know that we dodged a bullet and could easily have ended up with McCain and Palin.

But I believe that we may have to look in the mirror every morning and ask ourselves "What am I going to do today to help solve problems (that you raise in the article)". I know that many of us did a lot to help get Obama elected but it may not be enough. Each of us may have to do much more to deal with the Gazas, Bernie Madoffs, and all those other problems awaiting us on the horizon.

[Savanna]

It would seem that the collective news media folks have lost the willingness to put anything in
a positive light. How can we go on in the nation with these kinds of attitudes from those that are
telling the American people day after day, hour after hour what to think. The media has become like
a running sore on the face of our nation.

[kaukerc]

Agreed.

[yetmost]

Amen!!

[lesterbud]

Under the circumstances (everything deteriorating), McCain would have been a sure disaster for this country. He had no new ideas, could not think on the run, and was beholden to the very powers that created the messes (war, economy, foreign relations, environment) in the first place.

We would have quickly gone bankrupt as a nation and become property of the player holding the most IOU's.

John McCain, President of the United States of America, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Peoples Republic of China.

[Erica Heller - Huffpost Blogger]

Too, too hideous to contemplate. We're so lucky we don't have to.

[blood1]

I like so many have considered that with all the insane happenings going on around the world and here in the USA, what would have McCain done. If that thought does not put the FEAR into you then please share your pharmaceuticals!

I know that Obama will not meet all of anyone's expectations, but considering how low Bush has moved the bar that defines success, he is certainly better than the alternative choice.

And when I get that queazy feeling, all I do is turn on CSPAN and listen to John Boehner...then I am reassured that Obama was the right choice ( yeah, I know - another low standard from which to measure).

[Vixter]

I have thought the same thing many times. I do feel that P-E Obama will at least tell the American People (and by extension, the rest of the world) the truth about what's going on in OUR country. Dubya wouldn't even admit that we were in a recession - even though all Americans with a brain cell knew the truth.

I wonder why McCain hasn't come out cheering for Israel in this latest of Mid-East crisis? Does he still think that we should never speak with a 'terrorist' organization? Does the bombing of Gaza make Israel a terrorist org? The dead & injured numbers seem to say that something is wrong, & IMO it needs to be addressed.

[eilish]

I tell my unemployed kids every day to look forward to the stimulus plan for hope, and to be thankful they have family to support them in the meantime. I remind my blind son of how the guys in the hospital cheered Shinseki's appointment because of his strength and compassion for them. I believe that it won't take much to bring back this nation that is 79% happy with Obama's plan, that all it will take is a small improvement rather than this steep slide downhill to lift spirits. That's when the real improvements will begin to show.

[aofh]

One of the things that is hopeful is that Obama is not going to cry foul and we all know it. He seems to have an extraordinary sense of what he's getting into, has rolled up his sleeves and is confronting it. I don't think anyone else running would have done what he has done since the election. For once, what we've got is far more exciting than "we're lucky we didn't get that."

[OlderBudWeiser]

Great article! That thought has crossed my mind many times and still scares the carp out of me. We have dodged a barrage of bullets. I wouldn't blame Obama for crying foul. He's in it to preside over the whole enchilada. He will be the best President in history. Mc Cane and Palin would bring about the end of the world. This election just about made me religous.

[Erica Heller - Huffpost Blogger]

I can still hardly believe it!

[BadTimesAhead]

Well let's see, we've spent decades of building our entire economy upon consumer capitalism and the american people were all to happy to shop till they dropped with money they didn't actually have. Now the house of cards is poised to collapse and Obama's answer is the same as Bush's, let's try to spend our way out with money we don't actually have.

If blaming Bush for decades of bad economic policy and unabashed american materialism makes you sleep well then I envy you.

If thinking Obama will make it all better makes you sleep better then I envy you.

Sleep Well

[William1950]

McCain and Palin might have made Ann Coulter the white house press secretary... shudder...

[zeotrope]

Now thats a really scary thought.

[Oonagh]

What this administration is leaving behind is scary... the thought that McCain/Palin ... beyond scary..... yes, it is going to be bad but it sure could have been a lot worse.....

[gia]

Breath again! It will be fine. We take ourselves too seriously...Mother Earth doesn't...­....season­s change and so will this. Make a difference in how YOU want the "change" in your life.