O-dministration, O-Kaying images, O-verview, O-ptimism - the Obama beginning

Many are the melancholy or indignant post-mortems emerging as Bush's days draw to a close. Oh, how glad are we all to see the back of Bush.
Obama, awaiting inauguration and setting up his administration, stands in stern contrast to the invocational charm of the campaign. Well may he be stern. He has much to put to rights and already the dissent and criticism festers from the Right. As Paul Krugman says in the NY Times, the GOP needs to stop whining and look at the mess it is in.

Meanwhile, we quietly shimmer in anticipation for the Obama takeover and to see a country with this impressive family in the White House. I gather it is called the White House simply because it is white, made of white marble. Somehow the name seems as inept as it is unimaginative now that it is to hold a black incumbent.

What we will have to understand is that the Obamas are going to be given not only the unprecedented physical protection that they require because of the disgrace of death threats they have been receiving from the racist underclass of America, but also they will be spin doctored and marketed with much greater care and caution than any of their White House predecessors. Michelle's caustic ad libs will have to go. She is a role model now who makes Oprah almost insignificant. The strategists are working out the balance between gravitas and glamour, puppies and politics, not to mention comparisons with Kennedys and Clintons.

Good luck to the lot of 'em. We and they are in for an interesting and, I hope, uplifting time.

The breathless wait

The day is here.
I've had my breath held for weeks, amassing lists of all the things that can and will go wrong in the voting processes. There are happening out there, all over the USA - but they are not enough, it seems, to impede this great current.
Obama was not my first choice - but, along with Hillary, I have swung around to support him and to watch him growing in statesmanlike proportions.
He is an elegant and erudite man and my hopes for him are high.

How wonderous it is that he should surmount the frightening power of the great Republican lower class fundamentalist hate machine.
As noted by US analysts, the "Walmart" vote is now Republican since it no longer relates to wealth or class but to the adherence to conservatism and religion-based home education which ensures that dangerous, enlightened ideas never cross the minds of the little home-grown right wingers.
The educated classes are the Democrats these days. And the coffee drinkers. Starbucks came out for Obama and give free coffess to voters and volunteers. How 'bout dat! Only in America.

For the African Americans, an Obama win could lay the foundations for a mass attitudinal change, to give a sense of positivity and hope to that huge American underclass. What a powerful and beautiful country the US could be if its black population took to the books and reached for the stars.

Sidin' with Biden

Now, I know Biden has been around for decades and is a respectable Democratic senator from, uh, that corporate tax haven state of Delaware. I was keen to hear him speak when I was in New Hampshire, but his dates and whereabouts never quite worked out for me. He was on a slimmer campaign budget than some and did not tour as extensively. Not like Clinton or Obama.

So, not hearing him in the flesh, I could only join his newslist and keep an eye on him. He did not fire me up. Not like Bill Richardson.

But he seemed civilized, seasoned, intelligent enough... There is a long tradition of good Catholic men in liberal politics. I have time for them.

The main thing that impressed me about Biden and impresses me now is the silver hair and Hollywood features - he looks like someone who has come direct from Central Casting.

Perchance this makes him just right for the role.
White man for the white vote. Restrained and conventional for the middle-of-the-roaders. Photogentic for the media.
He is a fine piece of political window dressing.

Beneath Barack's lovely prose...

"...another of those tricks I had learned: People were satisfied so long as your were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfie; they were relieved such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn't seem angry all the time.''
This extract from Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father which I have just re-read, now finding things more significant than I did at the first reading when, frankly, I was simply seduced by the beautiful prose and the man's impressive eloquence.
This time round, it is a frightening story of racial anger.

I think my biggest cringe was at mention of a girl who took a job nannying for a family in Hawaii. Apparently the girl was black and the family was not. Hence, for the girl, the job was deeply degrading.
When her employers dared to love her and think of her as part of the family, apparently the insult was all the worse. Oh, my.

I don't want to, but I find myself harking on about racial anger.

Why does being black make a job more degrading than it does for a white or hispanic or Asian? Is a job not a job?


I tell ya, a man bringing these views to the Whitehouse is quite a worry.
What a bloody mess,
This is the last thing I expected when the primaries got up and running last year.

Get Hillary - its the only choice.

It is all getting rather silly - and very worrying.
I watched what we were able to see on TV of the ABC Hillary/Barack debate, topping up content with online clips. Unless one is there, it is very hard these days to get any report which is not skewed with opinion.
The big loser of the debate according to all and sundry was the ABC for its pussyfooting and puny questioning.

Now, some of the commentators are saying that the ABC's biggest fault was that it was anti-Obama and therefore pro Clinton.

We have reached a stage of this nightmarish primary in which almost anything at all is deemed anti-Obama. While Hillary is a prime target for all the bile of the right with its entrenched Clinton hate agenda, Obama is protected by that exquisite American prerequisite for political correctness.

Since all criticism of Obama can be seen as racist, there can be no criticism. It backfoots Hillary badly - and puts a compromise on the open blather of the political pundits. So, if one is going to snipe and carp and criticise and keep that old media ball rolling with beat-up controversy, the middle class white woman with her sinful husband is the only way to go.

Oh, what a Catch 22.

Black and white

Geraldine Ferraro has resigned because of the disgrace of saying that Obama would not be where he is today in the primary if he was not black.

But, surely Obama is as white as he is black.

Obama is 50-50.

I am finding it hard to comprehend why he has forsaken white legacy - rejected that white blood line to brand himself "African American". Is this not courting the black vote?

Obama is African and American.

How would his poor mother feel, were she alive, to know that her role in his being has been discarded?