Saturday, January 24, 2009
a tale of two planes
Andrew Sullivan finds historical symmetry in two planes: one smashed into the World Trade Center, and the other guided onto the Hudson River.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
inauguration
The excitement generated by the inauguration of Barack Obama (I can virtually see the waves of joyous energy rippling across the Potomac) is accounted for in the media by two things: the abysmal economy and two foreign wars ("change, please"), and the "historicity" of Barack Obama's election as the first African-American president.
(It's a pet peeve of mine that he is identified exclusively in the media as a black man, when he is bi-racial. Same with Tiger Woods. It's as if the media still can't deal with inter-racial marriage and the booming population of young people of mixed race. Then again, Obama does self-identify as African-American.)
I don't buy the "post-racial" thing, but my enthusiasm for Obama has much less to do with race than merit.
I watched him deliver the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and I leapt out of my chair and said, "This amazing man will be president someday! The first black president!" I thought it would be eight or 12 years, but I knew it would happen.
And yes, hope for a better future awoke that day. Because here was a man of substance, vision, wisdom, and reflection, with an astounding rhetorical ability. So young, so obviously brilliant, the full package.
I went out my way to go to a fundraiser for Tim Kaine in 2005 because Obama was speaking. I called my father afterward to tell him. He had no idea who Barack Obama was. I said, "you will."
The Bush Administration: 8 years of the degradation of our Constitution and the rule of law, the fruitless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan sucking our money and lifeblood and energy, endless abuses of power, arrogance and indifference toward those who dissent, then the coup de grace of the utter destruction of the economy.
Even more years of a Republican Congress thriving on rancor and churning up any resentment and bitterness in Americans they could harness to keep them in power. The 2008 election was an iconoclastic conflict between these politics of fear-mongering and small-mindedness and -- something new.
Of course we feel relief that Republican hegemony is over. Of course we are jubilant that this ant-brained president who never should have left Texas is on his way back, and we pray that Dick Cheney will find an new undisclosed location and stay there forever.
We might have only heaved a giant sigh before gritting our teeth and shouldering of the burden of anxiety and care to rebuild after this hurricane, just like New Orleans is still doing after Katrina.
Yet we are optimistic and joyous, because not only is this president a symbol of victory over bigotry and historical oppression, he is a victory of substance: in thought process, decision-making and temperament, he is everything that George W is not.
Jimmy Carter embodied the personal integrity the country yearned for in a president after Nixon, yet that integrity and idealism was coupled with inflexibility and impatience with political process.
In Obama we have the non-ideological pragmatic. I am not convinced that this is a great thing, but it could be perfect for the times.
The country now yearns for the competent hand of a pilot like Chesley Sullenberger to guide this listing plane to a miraculous landing. It may be too much to hope for.
Isn't it something though, when we can dare to hope, and say, "Yes, we can."
(It's a pet peeve of mine that he is identified exclusively in the media as a black man, when he is bi-racial. Same with Tiger Woods. It's as if the media still can't deal with inter-racial marriage and the booming population of young people of mixed race. Then again, Obama does self-identify as African-American.)
I don't buy the "post-racial" thing, but my enthusiasm for Obama has much less to do with race than merit.
I watched him deliver the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and I leapt out of my chair and said, "This amazing man will be president someday! The first black president!" I thought it would be eight or 12 years, but I knew it would happen.
And yes, hope for a better future awoke that day. Because here was a man of substance, vision, wisdom, and reflection, with an astounding rhetorical ability. So young, so obviously brilliant, the full package.
I went out my way to go to a fundraiser for Tim Kaine in 2005 because Obama was speaking. I called my father afterward to tell him. He had no idea who Barack Obama was. I said, "you will."
The Bush Administration: 8 years of the degradation of our Constitution and the rule of law, the fruitless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan sucking our money and lifeblood and energy, endless abuses of power, arrogance and indifference toward those who dissent, then the coup de grace of the utter destruction of the economy.
Even more years of a Republican Congress thriving on rancor and churning up any resentment and bitterness in Americans they could harness to keep them in power. The 2008 election was an iconoclastic conflict between these politics of fear-mongering and small-mindedness and -- something new.
Of course we feel relief that Republican hegemony is over. Of course we are jubilant that this ant-brained president who never should have left Texas is on his way back, and we pray that Dick Cheney will find an new undisclosed location and stay there forever.
We might have only heaved a giant sigh before gritting our teeth and shouldering of the burden of anxiety and care to rebuild after this hurricane, just like New Orleans is still doing after Katrina.
Yet we are optimistic and joyous, because not only is this president a symbol of victory over bigotry and historical oppression, he is a victory of substance: in thought process, decision-making and temperament, he is everything that George W is not.
Jimmy Carter embodied the personal integrity the country yearned for in a president after Nixon, yet that integrity and idealism was coupled with inflexibility and impatience with political process.
In Obama we have the non-ideological pragmatic. I am not convinced that this is a great thing, but it could be perfect for the times.
The country now yearns for the competent hand of a pilot like Chesley Sullenberger to guide this listing plane to a miraculous landing. It may be too much to hope for.
Isn't it something though, when we can dare to hope, and say, "Yes, we can."
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