Ironically George Will tries to do Irony

[underpants]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/11/irony_abounds.html

November 09, 2008
Irony Abounds
By George Will

Ironies abound. The election of an African-American discomfits the Democratic Party. It practices identity politics, stressing the relevance of "race-conscious" policies, defending racial preferences in public hiring, contracting and education. But the election of Barack Obama is an American majority's self-emancipation: We are free at last from the inexpressible tedium of the preoccupation with skin pigmentation.

Another paradox: More than any presidency since Lincoln's, Bush's has been defined by a single subject, a war. But since the middle of September, in this presidency's last 130 days, the financial crisis eclipsed Iraq. Obama opposed the surge in Iraq, the success of which was perhaps a necessary prerequisite for his election. It removed the danger that he could be cast as advocating, or at least resigned to and complacent about, military defeat, from which most Americans, however much they regret the war, flinch.

More irony: September's financial storm probably sealed Obama's victory by raising the electorate's anxieties while lowering its confidence in Obama's opponent. John McCain's responses -- suspending, sort of, his campaign; ratcheting up his rhetoric about Wall Street "greed and corruption" -- suggested a line spoken solemnly by the Capitol Steps' George W. Bush impersonator: "Uncertain times call for uncertain leadership." But the storm's aftermath -- $1 trillion or so of government resources siphoned away -- will severely constrain Obama's presidency. So, this year the conditions conducive to the election of liberals, with their baroque plans and rococo dreams, have put a polar frost on most such ambitions.

For now, the president-elect is coming to terms with something noted by Ambrose Bierce, the 19th-century American wit who wrote "The Devil's Dictionary." He defined "president" as the leading figure in a small group of persons of whom it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want them to be president. Tuesday night, Obama, in his agreeably subdued speech in Grant Park, seemed to feel the weight of that.

He especially seemed determined to assuage the unease of those, and they are many, who discern in his cool demeanor an unattractive detachment from the warm, unembarrassed, demonstrative patriotism that is distinctively American. Hence such Grant Park language as: "Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us." That was a prospective commander in chief finding his voice.

[bemildred]

1. Boy, you just don't know where to start with this.

Every paragraph is full of wild claims and bizarre interpretations.

[underpants]

4. Will can't seem to get past his own nose

as he types he seems to be saying "I am respectable because I wear these glasses" over and over and over to himself.

You are right this goes off in several directions at once and never gets back to anywhere, at least not of this world.

[LaurenG]

2. You know you have posted some of the most interesting articles.

Thanks for doing the leg work. (finger work?)

[underpants]

5. John McCain made Kathleen Parker cry

http://townhall.com/columnists/KathleenParker/2008/11/07/postscript

[LaurenG]

11. Thanks - that too was a good one! nt

[undeterred]

3. George Will is one of the most uncomfortable human beings that ever lived.

"Grant Park language"

[TankLV]

6. People: Notice the FOCUS of his remarks...

It's like a "non-apology" apology...

He's bitch slapping us - again - while trying to couch his words to SEEM like a compliment...

Alternate Universe Rules apply here...

[underpants]

8. The irony

Will thinks getting them ONE guy in ONE position should end affirmative action and all that that movement entails

Will doesn't see the irony that the war and the economic implosion is a direct result of their "ideas" ones that he has made a career of parroting

Will doesn't see the irony in that an actual grass roots movement IS a reflection of how people feel and a VAST majority (at the end of their divisive era-hopefully) did want him to be president.

Will doesn't see the irony that actions determine patriotism not a flag-wrapped fraud posing in front of military members forced to be there

Finally the overarching irony is that Will doesn't see that they got their ONE guy in there and their ideology collapsed around him and because of him and that that generated a call FROM THE PEOPLE for a drastic change.

[acmavm]

7. How can people think that there's an ounce of credibility in old George's

system? He's a man with a flair for hot air and big words.

[Waiting For Everyman]

9. We're all seeing now what an empty shell Repub "thought" is.

THAT is what we ruined millions of people over.

There's some irony, Georgie.

[boomerbust]

10. Chocolate Judas

Watching the local right wing politics show this morning, James T. Harris proclaimed, " The American people were the losers in this election because they chose symbolism over substance". Here's my message to the Chocolate Judas. FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[struggle4progress]

12. And Republicans oppose regulation cuz they're closet New Dealers. And doubled

the national debt cuz they believe in fiscal responsibility. And invaded Iraq cuz they're pacifists. And ... and ...

Poor Mr Will

[Uncle Joe]

13. The irony of the first paragraph.

"Ironies abound. The election of an African-American discomfits the Democratic Party. It practices identity politics, stressing the relevance of "race-conscious" policies, defending racial preferences in public hiring, contracting and education. But the election of Barack Obama is an American majority's self-emancipation: We are free at last from the inexpressible tedium of the preoccupation with skin pigmentation."

The Democratic Party knows history, for almost eighty years, the U.S. government practiced "race conscious" policies when it determined one race had the inalienable right to own another race. For an additional almost ninety years, the U.S. government practiced "race conscious" policies when it determined states had a right to ignore the "Fourteenth Amendment." For any political party or individual to pretend these "race conscious" policies didn't have a devastating effect on current standings and therefore shouldn't be remedied by government has no "conscious."

The election of President-Elect Obama did indeed serve many people as a form of healing or "self-emancipation" if you will, but this pertains to the people willing to accept this freedom as the gift to themselves for which it is, the government didn't elect Obama as it did in the case of Bush, the people did.

The true irony is for those miserly people believing themselves to be free and yet mentally or emotionally chained to the thought of several remedial decades as being adequate compensation for well over a century and half of governmental abuse to some of it's own people to be a tedium. I would suggest those miserly people are slaves to their own emotional poverty and no Civil War, Civil Right, or Constitutional Amendment changing the result of these remedial actions will free those poor souls. So no, Mr. Will, you aren't free at last, and may never be, you have to free your self.

Thanks for the thread, underpants.