I'm going to retire the word "disappointed" from any further posting

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

Disappointment requires expectations that are not fulfilled - there must be an element of surprise in order to be truly "disappointed". The element of surprise has finally disappeared one year into our great Democratic victory. One thing that is nice about diminished expectations is that you get to replace disappointment with the unexpected pleasant surprise on the rare occasion when things go the way you hoped.

The new realistic me no longer pretends that any of my personal expectations will be fulfilled. Just a few random ones were: a return to the Rule of Law pre-Bush, the Justice Department would be cleaned out of the politicized Rove/Bush prosecutor/persecuters, healthcare reform with a robust public option that would drive down costs,a fiscal policy that focused on Main Street MORE than Wall Street, the foxes would be removed from the henhouses-not enshrined in official positions, misbegotten wars would be wound down as rapidly as possible, etc. I may have had absolutely no real reason to think any of these things would happen, but I did. Silly, huh?

The newly pragmatic undisappointed me says every night before I go to sleep, "that was sure better than anything President Palin and a Republican Congress would have done" and I count my blessings.

[MercutioATC]

1. I dunno. I think one can be "disappointed" by unfulfilled hopes...

...however unfounded those hopes might have been.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

2. Can we have a funeral for it?

You know, like they did for this word:
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?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=17A4AD9FDB9CF19386C898F95CD5679311673CF28A591BC5A7CFF610D5B4FC25

[Double T]

3. YOU betcha!!

Sleep tight.

[Oregone]

4. "that was sure better than anything President Palin and a Republican Congress would have done"

Hey, if you spend your whole life exclaiming, "Hey lookie! Its not a pile of shit!", you may one day wake up and realize all you have accumulated is mud and dirt. When you lower the bar that far, anything remaining above it is therefore judged permissible, no matter how undesirable.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

6. It's called irony.

I was attempting to recast my dashed hopes and expectations in a way that is both "pragmatic" and "realistic" while not being "whining" or evidencing pony lust as I am oft counseled to do here even when the world as I see it is going to complete shit.

[lxlxlxl]

5. campaign finance reform

sorry...yeah i know its been a tough year, but do you think this country was going to go from a bush to obama smoothly? i always respected obama never promised that he could do it on his own, and from my understanding of social movements and progress, this country needs at least twelve years of obama and a decent successor to rollback on the last eight years. yeah guys, this is the FIRST year of a presidency given an enormous set of challenges.

if we give up now, the last eight years come back full force. bush won twice. he won two general elections, and was the biggest moron we've ever had to deal with.

trust me i do get disappointed, but ive been really disappointed lately with the responses of the left and institutions i respect that seem increasingly unrealistic and a softball to the type of GOP goons that are waiting for.