That's actually not true. George Bush actually made come true something that I had never even allowed myself to dream. As I've said before I'm only a year younger than Obama, we have several friends in common and like him mainstream black culture often questioned my black bona fides. Although I knew as a child that racial barriers were coming down, (after all on Zoom and The Electric Company and in my world black kids and white kids played together all the time), I nevertheless always knew that this nation still had very far to go.
Like Obama I too fantasized about what I would be when I grew up and I thought of myself as a pretty optimistic kid. Nevertheless, I never thought that America in my lifetime would be ready to elect me to anything higher than Senator.
Evidently my hope wasn't audacious enough.
As of today, the odds-on favorite for the person with his hand on the bible as Chief Justice Roberts swears him in as the 44th President of the United States on January 20th, 2009, will be a black man. Just close your eyes for a moment and picture how odd that image will be. If it happens that image will instantly reverberate around the world as the most powerful symbol of America living up to its founding principles since Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
As Jon Stewart said on the Oscars the other night, it used to be when you saw a black man or a woman president you were watching science-fiction (or 24) and an asteroid was about to slam into the Statue of Liberty.
I think of myself as a pretty creative guy and yet I literally never thought I'd see the day. And I have to thank not only Obama's charisma but also, and at least as significantly, Bush's incompetence.
If Bush hadn't stumbled this nation into the briar patch that is Iraq and then subsequently bungled every possible opportunity for resolving the war, the country would not be near ready for so radical a change. If the war had gone according to the Republicans' fever dream today we would be as much a one-party nation as Putin's Russia.
I love the films Children of Men and V for Vendetta because they give us chillingly realistic glimpses into what that future might have been like. Dissent crushed, perpetual fear and war, toxic air -- pretty much Dick Cheney's wet dream. Bush could have anointed any successor he chose.
Of course one can play "What if" all night long. If Nader hadn't...? If Gore or Kerry had...? I remember that night that Kerry lost and the depression that enveloped me and everybody I knew for months to come. Looking back, I don't know why I was so sad. I had forgotten the old Taoist tale about the unpredictable nature of good and bad luck. I put it in my book Bedtime Stories and Aaron Sorkin used it as well in Charlie Wilson's War.
The Old Man of the Steppes Finds a Horse
A Traditional Taoist TaleOnce upon a time a wise old farmer who lived on the steppes awoke to find that his prize mare had broken out of the corral and run off. The neighbors cried, "Oh, what bad luck your best horse ran away!" The farmer, however, replied, "Who knows?" A few days later the mare returned and brought back with it a magnificent mustang stallion. The neighbors cried, "Oh, what good luck!" Again the farmer replied, "Who knows?" Then the farmer's son tried to ride the wild horse and was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors shouted, "Oh, what bad luck!" and the farmer said, as always, "Who knows?" Then the local warlord raced into the village conscripting all the able-bodied young men into battle. When he came upon the farmer's son and his broken leg he let him stay. His neighbors cheered, "Oh, what good luck that your son was spared!" The farmer could only answer what he had before. "Who knows?"
Trey Ellis is the author of Bedtime Stories: Adventures in the Land of Single-Fatherhood.
At 87, Stevens is still fighting the good fight and arguably doing more than any American alive to prevent the collosial erosion of civil liberties and a slide to a V for Vendetta scenario. Stevens' principled legal reasoning and willingness to stay on the job long after many would have retired would make him a fitting choice.
Think. America depends on it.
So, in a very real sense the horrendous failures that anyone claiming minimal competence should readily realize has produced the present political fervor that is making this election process so memorable, so compelling, so exiting and so hopeful, stems directly from the "record" compiled by the Republicans since the stolen election of 2000. This fervor stems directly from Republican excess and Democrat acquiesence. Both parties are absolutely guilty: Republicans by commission and Democrats by omission. (Nancy Pelosi is hardly a champion of democracy)
It unfortunately, has taken the murders, the thefts, the lies, the waste and mis-management of the past 7 plus years to hit we Americans squarely between the eyes and force us to demand a raging call for a new direction. This is a manifestation of more than just a sneaking suspicion by the American people that this nation is caught up in a death spiral .
So, sadly it has taken Bush and Cheney's criminality to wake us up. Which ever way we go from here has to be a marked improvement. Down has to be now, up!
Of course we cant forget the images of the horror and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The world saw the reality of an administration that could not get food or water to US citizens in need. Bodies floating down the street 5 - 6 days later and a president who files in and out in one day making promises and keeping none. Three trillion dollars on Iraq and New Orleans neighborhoods lie in ruins. Maybe Obama can be the farmer's son. Who knows ??
Shame on you Mr. Bush
Who knows?
You, sir, are a jack ass.
I remain, Semper Fidelis,
Mark Finelli
Sole WTC 9.11 Survivor to Enlist in the Marines and fight in Iraq.
They were mostly Saudi jihadists.
I knew a guy who was a Marine, but he wasn't a blowhard about it, like you are (if you indeed even served in the Marines). To me, that's *real* heroism: serving, and not using the experience as a tool for self-promotion.
Tell me, "Chinampas", what would you do if another country, say China, invaded and occupied us "to protect us"? Would you bow and take their money? Or would you fight back and resist?
If you were really this confident about your 72 year old, warmonger, lobbyist bedfellow, hair-trigger temper, pro-Iraq War, carrying the Bush economic record, you wouldn't be spending so much time on a progressive blog trying to convince everyone Obama "can't win".
And if you're going to point back to 1976, get your facts right. Jimmy Carter had a 33 point edge on Gerald Ford in June/July. Not late February.
It's tied now between Barack Obama and John McCain. We'll see how well Dr. Stranglove does in November when he has to run on his advocacy of more wars and less jobs with Iraq exploding and gas at $4.00 a gallon.