Bruce Plante Tulsa World Jan 20, 2009 |
Listen folks, to this ex-Washingtonian: The inaugural speech was written by professional speechwriters, who obviously were told to try for an amalgam of Lincoln, FDR, and JFK (in fact, I was amused to note that Obama actually used a paraphrase of a phrase JFK stole from Winston Churchill). Forget it. The political pundits are already pointing out that Obama has gone back on several key campaign promises, and, last night, watching the news on Israeli TV, The Husband said, "Watching snips from his campaign now, with subtitles, so I understand what he's actually saying, I'm noticing that he really didn't say much of anything concrete at all." So true. "Save the planet!" Exactly how, sir? Um.... "Reform health care!" Ahh.....
Virtually all the political cartoonists in the past couple of days have either had cartoons with "Hope!" or "History" in them. This mindless ecstasy of the American people (350,000 applying for about 8,000 available government jobs in the new administration) is going to be shattered within months, if not weeks. The wheels of government just don't move that fast.
A person on another forum was moved to write: "Oh it's just like Camelot!"
Remember what Camelot gave us: the Bay of Pigs, an assassination, and the Vietnam War.
Well, I hope it turns out better than my instincts tell me it will. One of the great things about being a pessimist by nature is that I'm never disappointed, while optimists always are.
1 comment:
Well Sarah. I come to you from the Gabaldon discussion list. I am a Jewish American, currently living in Chicago. I am a lifelong democrat who most recently voted republican, largely due to what your husband observed. I have visited Israel...worked on a kibbutz just out of high school, climbed Mt Sinai to see the sun rise, floated in the Dead Sea, walked the Via Dolorosa, and generally fell in love with history on the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. I don't get American Jews, so many of whom are protesting on behalf of Palestinians. I don't understand how so many people have forgotten the lessons of a mere sixty years ago. I believe that this IS anti-semitism. I don't mind telling you, our new POTUS worries me terribly. Anyway, I just wanted to show my solidarity. Any friend of DIana Gabaldon AND Israel is a friend of mine.
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