fredlet

No, honey, I’m a realist.

One thing I hate about people is the act of building something/someone up to ridiculous heights, expect miracles and then, when reality happens they act all hurt and angry that promises were broken.
This is what I am afraid of with Obama.

Granted, he hasn’t promised miracles (no really, he hasn’t-look at his speeches.), and yet, people look at him and weep in gratitude that he is in the Oval Office.
(Well, I ‘m relieved that Bush is out, but I’m also trepidatious because the people who put the shrub in the office FOR A SECOND TERM (Seriously people, what the hell were you thinking?) after it was proven he has no skill at managing and destroyed a country based on a bad bit of info and still refuses to admit it was a bad idea… are the same booger-pickin’ morons that Obama has to deal with now.)

But, we have a crap economy which has its nasty little roots based in Reaganomics, a war debt that is absurd and problems with the future that won’t just go away (and promises to get worse and worse as my grandparents and parents age and use up the money set aside for all of us (also, if you think you are going to see a penny of that social security that you are paying a good chunk of your yearly salary into, you are seriously delusional. My ‘retirement’ choices are based on it being my primary support system as I will probably need to have a part time job until I die or can’t work anymore to pay for insurance and day to day doodles.)) Not only does Obama have to deal with the current mess we are in, the mess we have coming… he also doesn’t have absolute power.
Think back to junior high social studies, kiddies. There is a bi-cameral legislature and the president.
A system of checks and balances.
So, anything that Obama wants to do pretty much has to be approved by the other guys.
..and this is a good thing.

I remember watching the overwhelming YES vote to the patriot act (with a small, small incident of dissent asking for a discussion of some of the stickier bits) based on scare tactics that hearkened back to the McCarthy era.
Gah.
Our government caved and fell to cheap scare tactics (If you aren’t for us you are against us! If you questions me you aren’t patriotic! and all that bully crap.)… which lead to years of our basic rights, as listed in the constitution, eroded slowly and surely away… and the smug, arrogant looks on Bush & Cheney’s faces as they said it was “for our own good” disgusted me.
I WANT our congress folk and senators to have cojones (and brains while we are wishing for things).
I WANT them to say “Hang on a minute…” and look at what they are signing.

Hopefully, Obama has a bit more honor than the shrub. I don’t know the man, I have heard speeches, but other than that, he’s a politician and that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a good person.
It just means he’s a successful politician and a handsome, convincing speaker.
(Case in point, Kennedy… good lookin’, died early, left a pretty corpse and everyone loves a martyr…but great leader? Maybe not so much.)

I just know that 1. there will be missteps 2. that Obama doesn’t have absolute power (and even if he did, I don’t know that he could clean up this mess that quickly) and 3. he has to get the right legislation/decisions approved by the selfsame fussy, bitchy pile of politicians that is in D.C. and that he might not be able to get this working very quickly; the U.S. is a great lumbering beast, it isn’t known for cunning shifts in direction.

So, no, I am not weeping in gratitude that Obama is in the Whitehouse.
I am more pleased that McCain ISN’T in there (because if you thought the shrub was bad, McCain would have been worse. And even though Palin could have charmed the foreign dignitaries, any socialite wife can, but they would have dismissed her as a moron and asked to sit at the grown-up table…). So I’ll reserve my happiness and stay cautious for now.

We’ve got a shitload of hard choices and heavy lifting for the next 10 years.
Gird your loins, girlies.

(oh, and fair warning bloggers/tweeters: if I catch wind of you weepers doing a 180 when something gets wonky, I will shred you. I know who you are.)