Confession: My blood pressure was lower when Bush was President

[darkstar]

Not that I was happier. No. More like I understood the human nature behind both blind ideology *and* using the cloak of this ideology to mask baser impulses like greed and the hunger for power. And it saddened me for our country when we didn't look out for our own, started a pointless war, and demonized left-leaning politicians and liberals like myself.

Now, as long as I'm being honest, I'd like to tell you that despite my lefty-beliefs and being on this board, this is the least into any election cycle I can recall sense I've been eligible to vote. Lots going on in my life the last few years: moving to midwest, selling house, underemployment, new job last spring, ill parent, buying a house in late summer, family death Dec 7. In short, I've been paying less attention than usual and I feel like I never formed the bond (intellectual, emotional, patriotic, what have you) that I'm imagining many of you feel.

So my recent anger has been unexpected. It's not b/c I'm so into Obama; it's b/c it is no longer about greed and power and baseless ideology and smearing the entire left. Instead, it is b/c just ONE MONTH IN, all of their efforts are now seemingly focused on DESTROYING A SINGLE MAN. That's all they've got. That's all they are doing. Obama's alternately already a failed president or an evil-genius, Manchurian-syle candidate intent on single-handedly bringing socialism to our shores. Yeah, I'm still sad for our country in all of this, but something about aiming all that hatred at a guy who has managed to bring a shred of grace and hope to the nation is making the bile rise in me, giving me that nausea/rage hybrid that I hadn't felt in a long time.

Anyone else feel the same? Actually angrier than you've been in some time despite the fact that "we won"?

[Fire Walk With Me]

1. Considering that the Republican Noise Machine went all-out against him

and utterly failed, there is hope that things have indeed changed, and that the right is simply strangling itself as it fights the new direction.

[graywarrior]

2. Yeah, I've noticed

But they're digging a hole for themselves and I love watching it.

[jobycom]

3. It's what they did to Clinton. It was expected. I'm actually calmer this time.

Maybe because I was expecting it, maybe because I'm older and just know it's a constant battle that is never won, only continually fought. I watch Clinton get bashed even around here, and I know that Obama will get the same treatment for eight years, assuming eight years, and then afterwards the media will chip away at whatever legacy he leaves.

The last five Republican presidents failed miserably. Two--Reagan and W--left us with enough debt to destroy us, while leaving the economy in a shambles. One resigned indisgrace, one pardoned him for doing so.

And yet the media talks about the Republican presidents with fondness, and ridicules or ignores our last two presidents, and our one candidate who won the election but was never sworn in. Granted, Carter left a mess not entirely of his own doing, but he made great gains as well, and Clinton was an unmitigated success by any standard.

So that's what I expect. I'm calm. We have the power. Even if I don't agree with everything our current leaders do, I know they will point us in the direction we need to be going, and will do their best. The fights are over good things.

The media is the PR Department of the Republican Party, and we should expect nothing more from them. Obama will do his thing, and historians will judge him, and the media can look pretty and drive big cars, and they, too, will be judged in their emptiness and superficiality by historians.

It's all good. Or at least, it's all as good as we can expect.

[Lil Missy]

4. Oh, they will harass the shit out of Obama, no doubt. Just like they did Clinton.

Honestly, they spent 8 years and Millions to eventually find something in Clinton's underwear.

Could you even imagine if bush was investigated as much as Clinton was? He was, to some degree, but it was "okay" for him to go AWOL, snort coke, probably snockered through most of his terms, and generally be the Village Idiot. Double standards, anyone?

You SHOULD be angry. I know I am. I thought bush was a sleazy pig during the 2000 primaries. He never answered a single damned question!