President Obama.
Though beaten, battered, and dragged through the filth of 20 months-worth of attacks, the spirit of America lives on tonight across the entire country. All is possible. All is doable. The American Dark Ages are over. Bring forth The American Renaissance.
Welcome back, intellect. Welcome back, civility, dignity, and The American Dream.
It's been pretty rough without you around.
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Wow, so I've been so happy and hopeful about the win that I haven't let my mind settle on how much crap the Obamas have had to live through. That crap, of course, had consumed my mind (in between the Obama speeches I would catch) up until the election was called.
It really was so despicable how the McCain-Palin ticket treated Senator Obama. I was happy to see that McCain was so gracious in his concession; I mean, I *knew* he would be, but it was also hard to hear the sincerity in his voice while he praised Obama's shining qualities tonight, after he spent so much time allowing his supporters to tarnish Obama's character. I think, if he really is the gracious hero that we've been led (by Obama, I might add) to believe he is, that McCain will have serious regrets about how hateful and deceitful his campaign was.
Now that the campaigning is finally over, and now that the country has a new hope (1138!), I *hope* that the Republican party will spend some time mending fences.
Paul Krugman in the New York Times online:
...for the past 14 years America’s political life has been largely dominated by, well, monsters. Monsters like Tom DeLay, who suggested that the shootings at Columbine happened because schools teach students the theory of evolution. Monsters like Karl Rove, who declared that liberals wanted to offer "therapy and understanding" to terrorists. Monsters like Dick Cheney, who saw 9/11 as an opportunity to start torturing people.
And in our national discourse, we pretended that these monsters were reasonable, respectable people. To point out that the monsters were, in fact, monsters, was "shrill."
I cried last night. Not at the history of a new era in race relations. Not at the historic mobilization of the "youth" vote who, as Obama so aptly noted, "who rejected the myth of their generation’s apathy."
I cried because of the landslide rejection last night symbolized of the divisive and hateful presidency of George W. Bush. For 8 years, "liberals" have been painted as villians without our own country - unpatriotic in our dissent with torture and the removal of constitutional rights, appeasing by way of our attempts to point out that diplomacy, not weapons, brought down the Berlin wall, and immoral because we firmly believe that Jefferson was right when he said that "all men are created equal."
Will the massive losses the Republicans brought upon themselves provide as fuel for their hate-filled and racist/biggotted rhetoric? Yes.
However, President-Elect Obama showed me last night that America as a nation can rise above hatred. I hope the nation internalizes this message. I hope we just changed the face and discourse of American politics.
McCain? Smearing Obama? Did you forget what country this is? Did your forget how, unfortunately, in politics and elections, candidates smear each-other? That's just how it is. Obama and McCain did a very fair share of beating each-other up. Both with the truth, and with a few lies. That's how it is. I'm glad, though, that we haven't just had times of candidate smearing candidate, but that we've had a lot of politeness, as well.
I'm not happy we have a liberal in-office, to tell you the truth. But I'm not going to live in denial, and be a cry-baby about it. Obama's the next President. That's a fact.
Now, the election's over. What we do now, is rebuild the country. There're still a number of things going on not only in this country but in the world at large that need to be fixed. The economy, and the War on Terrorism, being the major ones, I think.
I can't agree with most of what you guys post on here, but I think we can all agree, we've got to get over all this "He started it", "it's all the Republican's fault", [etc., etc., etc.] crap.
Start rebuilding our country and not your job. -That goes to the people in politics who are holding us back, from fixing these messes.
I didn't support Obama in the election, but now that he's won, all I can do is pray that he'll do the right thing. Not just for the Liberals, or the Democrats. For EVERYONE.
(To Rooni- Nice nod to Star Wars ;)
Wolfe,
While I agree that going forward we need to unite to face our bigger challenges, I think you're creating a false equivalency if you want to equate the "beating up" from John McCain to the "beating up" from Barack Obama.
If you want to contend that these two guys threw mud of equal grit, please find me matches for the following accusations that came out of the McCain campaign or the Republican National Committee.
1.) Barack Obama is a socialist
2.) Barack Obama is a communist
3.) Barack Obama supports denying healthcare to babies AFTER they're born as a form of abortion
4.) Barack Obama wants to take your house and property from you
5.) Barack Obama championed the teaching of sex education to kindergardeners.
6.) Barack Obama pals around with terrorists - plural.
7.) Barack Obama would rather lose a war than lose an election
8.) Barack Obama actively sought the endorsement of Hamas
9.) Barack Obama supports Fidel Castro
And then there's the visual innuendos made that weren't overt accusations but powerful in their charge and disgusting in their low-road goals. For example, the Republican National Committee put out a mailer attacking Barack Obama. The text was all about Obama and featured a close up of Obama's eyes... but the photo wasn't Obama's eyes. They used a photo of Osama Bin Laden which they color corrected to make his skin tone match Obama's.
All of that stuff came from either the McCain campaign or the National Republican party mailers and robocalls.
If you can generate an equally long and equally dirty list of false accusations from the Obama campaign or the DNC, then you have a point. But saying John McCain is like George Bush because he voted with him 90% of the time won't cut it... especially when that claim was first spoken by John McCain in boasting of his 90% voting record.
I don't think the comparison is even close.
I am very happy today. This is the first election I voted in becuase it's the first time the choice didn't feel like it was the lesser of 2 evils. But as many are pointing out, voting was the first thing we needed to do, not the last.
I thought McCain was sincere and very gracious. It was a much better concession speech than Hillary Clinton's during the primaries, which seemed an attempt to leave doors open.
Number 1- I'd love to know what your source for all of those accusations is, as I've not seen or heard of several of them.
Number 2-
1.) Barack Obama is a socialist
True. He does have several socialist views, including the government run health care and spreading the wealth program, which takes money away from hard-working Americans and giving the money to lazy bums who don't.
2.) Barack Obama is a communist
Not exactly true.
3.) Barack Obama supports denying healthcare to babies AFTER they're born as a form of abortion
I think of heard that before.
4.) Barack Obama wants to take your house and property from you
Depends how you look at it. The exact nature of the "spreading the wealth" program has yet to be seen.
5.) Barack Obama championed the teaching of sex education to kindergardeners.
I've also heard this one before. Not entirely sure if it's true..
6.) Barack Obama pals around with terrorists - plural.
Not true. He was friends with one, but likely not anyone other than Ayhers. I've heard this one.
The Republican party was wrong to say this, seeing as how Obama was only friends with Ayhers.
It's the same way I could make an unfair assumption by saying that because someone has had relations with 2 women in his life time that he's a womanizer.
7.) Barack Obama would rather lose a war than lose an election
Did you hear that in that exact wording? If you did, I'd like to know where you heard it.
8.) Barack Obama actively sought the endorsement of Hamas
I'd like to know where you heard that.
9.) Barack Obama supports Fidel Castro
And where you heard that.
Number 3-
Here're a few lies started by the Obama campaign.
1. About McCain, Obama said this- "This is the guy who sang bomb, bomb, bomb Iran, who called for the annihilation of North Korea. That, I don't think, is an example of speaking softly."
That's just as true as the accusations you yourself typed. That's just what most accusations are. Lies.
2. That the KKK endorses John McCain.
3. A few months ago, Obama's campaign launched a radio ad saying that McCain "will make abortion illegal."
John McCain has never said that he will make abortion completely and totally illegal.
The ad also seems to say that abortion is a woman-only matter, and that all women are pro-abortion. Both of which are untrue.
4. That someone at a McCain rally, when the name "Obama" was mentioned, yelled "kill him", and that the candidate speaking (Palin or McCain) didn't do anything about it.
The Secret Service later said that the allegation was unfounded, and the McCain supporters at the rally say that they heard no such comment.
5. That someone at a Palin rally yelled that Obama was the "n" word.
The word actually yelled was "redistributor."
Apparently, redistributor is code for the "n" word...
6. The Obama campaign has also, repeatedly, claimed that John would pay for his health care plan "With major reductions to Medicare and Medicaid."
The time for bickering is over. I'm ready to jump feet first into helping our country move forward and move beyond, so I'm going to stop talking about politics.
=)
That's definitely the first step that we all need to take. Once everyone stops arguing, we get things done for the better of the nation.
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