The Impeachment Hearing Room

The Election Is Over.  The Task Of Fashioning A Government And The Restoration Of America Is At Hand.  It Is Time To Get Down To The DC Red Meat!

The Publishing Houses Will Be Deluged By The Pundits And The Political Science Crowd.

In the millions of words destined to be written those that will be most valid are: “The Presidential Election of 2008 was an historic election as American elected its first Afro-American President, Barack Obama conducted the most exemplary campaign this nation has ever seen, The election was the most expensive in History, The Obama Campaign was the most complete on the ground and cyber space campaign ever constructed, The election was a repudiation of The Bush Years, the McCain Campaign failed miserably in its desperate flailing, decisions, polarizations of race and religious zealotry  and in the final stretch was driven by a failing economy; the bottom line…”It’s The Economy Stupid!”

Beyond that we will be treated to tons of tree killing tomes of the details and insider accounts, (fascinating and historically anecdotal), that will be in the various conclusions drawn,  more opinion than documented facts and will promulgate more myth than light shedding truth.  Many of those truths do not take thousands of pages to reveal and explain.

The scope and shape of Obama's win -- aided by the Rust Belt appeal of his running mate, Scranton's own Joe Biden -- is easy to qualify. The Democrats cleaned house. It's that simple.  The house cleaning could have been more thorough had not been for the ever-present prejudice of the incumbency, the power of the purse and the putrid performance of Congressional Democrats since the 2006 elections.

The election, though it show cased and spot lighted the vitriol of negative campaigning, and there were some documentable back fires, did not  lead to wholesale rejection of what has become an institutionalized practice, albeit not new, but abhorrent in the extremes to which it has been carried.  That Americans buy into the poison, even seem to revel in the poison, and is not to our credit as a people.  Character assassination, invective, innuendo, guilty by flimsy association and implication have never laid bare real issues and have never contributed to real solutions.

The negativity continues to deflect Americans from impacting problems and solutions in the manner that our times demand, and that failure only serves protect the every ill and every influence that we want most to dispose of in the political life of this nation, political corporate corruption of the system and the polarizations of extremism, class warfare, culture wars and Scapegoat smoke screening.   That having been said, let us move to the consideration of some fundamental facts and observations worth, in this writer’s opinion, of some real thought and mental digestion.

Barack Obama won among both men and women. He won every age group except seniors. Blacks, Hispanics, white voters ages 18-29 all backed the Illinois senator. 

He won among voters making more than $200K and voters making less than $50K. He won support from those in every education bracket, from voters without a high school degree to voters with post graduate schooling. He won Independents. He won moderates.  He won among those oppressed by the economy, those Democrats true to the core, among the educated to whom race is not an issue as they feel secure and do not fear anyone striving to get ahead in this world, and there is the key to our racism!

But one cannot simply walk away from those words without the clarification demanded by truth.  The young were attracted, swayed by the appeal, charisma, charm, exemplary oratory, intelligence and message of change and hope with which Obama set the table.

The same longing among the young had been there in the failed, stolen Kerry election.  That class went away into the depression of the rest of the country rather than rise up in a 60s type revolt against the assault of the fabric of our society launched by the Rovian calculations, correct, of the Bush Administration.   

But here are those who have already remarked that if John McCain had campaigned in the tone and tenor of his concession speech; he would have been elected.  I cannot disagree, and that is just my way of saying that he made himself more palatable there would have been more reason for many to have voted their closet racism or agnosticism.  That is revealed in the Senior vote with great clarity.

Obama rode the wave of the Iraq War controversy through the Primaries with integrity and success beating back the ego-ridden arrogance and “old school” personnel-riddled Clinton Campaign.  Trapped by ambition, a feeling of entitlement, “The First Woman” Syndrome, and unable to escape the issues the Obama Campaign diagnosed correctly her personal and campaign vulnerabilities after New Hampshire, managed the delegate controversy with exquisite finesse to their credit and triumphed. That was a sign of real insight, judgment and leadership.  It did not go unnoticed.

The economy failed; McCain postured and plummeted in sophomoric almost comedic confusion and Obama walked a steady line. He seized the second wave, rode the crest while McCain couldn’t get his board up to ride the surf and was being drowned with the Bush Anchor tied around his neck with a Gordian knot.

The Palin pick, a perverse egomaniacal inexperienced, ill-equipped expedient altar offering to the red meat extremists of the religious single issue right lit up the darkness of the McCain as the media jumped to the “pretty lady” until it became painfully obvious that she had little between her Moose Antlers and was given to all the qualities and attitudes we have to associate with the Republican arrogance of the Bush years.

Sister Sarah’s conduct in Alaskan office came under scrutiny; she went on a shopping spree still being tallied up and the Barracuda was Fey-filleted.  Madam curvaceous became madam clown and a Nazi-like cheer leader of hate, division, derision and racism.  The next anchor was thrown over board and the McCain Campaign fractured within.  That full exposé will make for interesting reading!

The painting unfolded and the McCain portrait became McSame, and worse yet, “John The War Hero” became John the discredited, John the scripted one line: “I have a plan” stumbling around stages haranguing crowds in demagogue suicidal fashion appealing to worst fears instincts and darkness in our society.  

His vote total attests to the fact that we are far from a unified people.  

Obama’s folks are hopeful, McCain backers by-in-large stand at the ready to attack every move of the new administration. 

The publishing world has already said it expects a deluge of anti-Obama books to be readied and profit wise are prepared to serve them up and have already indicated that they are not greatly interested in  Bush or Cheney memoirs; they can wait.  

Impeach Obama web sites are already in place before the Inauguration and the lunatics who insist that Obama is not a natural born citizen entitled to be President continue their mentally ill pursuit of that refuted notion.  The facts do not matter; they are crazier than a mad hatter, but they have free speech.

With Bush destined for history's rendering and the Democratic Party now dominating the House and Senate, for Obama, the hard work of governing begins.  It will not be easy.  The Racists lay in wait. The Neocon Corporate and financial pirates lay in wait. Those who opposed the election of this President have in their ranks those who will from day one be dedicated to the destruction of Barack’s Presidency at every turn.  They do not share our hopes, our visions or our dreams.  They hate them.

Words must be translated into action. Does a next-generation president, an African American who pledges to represent all the people, follow another Illinoisan's lead and bring able Republicans into his circle? 

Does he assemble a team of integrity.  He if does his place in history will be far more than simply “The First”.

How will he shape the highest court in the land? 

Will he save a sinking economy -- voters believed in great numbers that he, not his Republican rival, would better manage the crisis -- or get saddled with it?

Time will tell.  The hope is there.  The hope that he can distance himself from the lobbyists and power brokers exists, and unlike any President in recent times he enters the office positioned by his success and performance to do so.  

America wants a Saint, at least a portion do, in the White House.  

I will settle for an intelligent, honest President willing to surround himself with serious advisors and a competent cabinet determined to solve problems, restore the faith of the world in this nation and abide by The Constitution of These United States.  

I will settle for compassion in the Oval Office. 

I will settle for a President who will establish a prioritized agenda for the restoration of this nation, one who will trash a Neocon blood thirsty, oil sucking corporate K Street controlled congress; one who will bridle the wild bull of Wall Street with responsible regulation and shred every piece of worthless bank paper while revealing that the CEOs of this nation are not worth what they are being paid and what we are having to pay for their greed and incompetence.  

They are entitled to nothing; we are entitled to same health care coverage as our employees in the Congress and The White House.  A President committed to that proposition would be to my liking and I suspect 80 percent of America.

I will settle for a President determined to bring sanity to our foreign policy, one who rejects the John Wayne, Teddy Roosevelt macho Imperial Fascist vision of our place/role in the world.  I will settle for a President that embraces in his vision the fact that we are all brothers and sisters on this planet and that toleration, acceptance and accommodation are most constructive tools of governance than are imposition and dictation.

If Barack Obama can lead us in that walk through the forest of current world confusion and frustration, a world of despair, divisions, war and genocide to a placid lake side where men and women are not determined to or permitted to impose their personal moral codes on their neighbors; we, the world will be well-served. 

We are at Robert Frost’s fork in the road and we have voted to walk a different path.  Let us all aid in clearing that path and learn to accept one another as we do so.

I will settle for a President from Illinois who will in the words of another from that state: “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.   We must think anew; we must act anew.” 

I don’t ask much do I?  

I hope for much and do not at the moment propose to impart great expectations as the problems are daunting and to create unrealistic expectations would be the most dangerous of advocacies at the moment, for there is no danger in politics as great as an unfulfilled expectation.  

Let us not down play them or over play them.  

Let us be guided in common sense and if we are going to demand anything; let us demand that our employees in Congress do their jobs and not sacrifice a leader who brings hope by squandering that hope in simply going back to business as usual after the Inauguration. 

This much we can do!