Charlie Rose

doodahdaze  01/21/2009 07:04 AM Report

Now, only time will tell, will he really be President Obama. Or will he take off the mask, and turn into...

President Yomama!!!

REMant  01/20/2009 03:26 PM Report

This weekend in Washington is among the most disgusting displays I have ever seen anywhere. The train trip was completely over the top. Even the movie stars and big-salary athletes are here as if it were the Oscars or Super Bowl. But why shouldn't they be here, they all gave a million bucks, didn't they? It is idolatry on a scale that only the Pope commands. My fear is that there is more than symbolism in this comparison. History records that when Andrew Jackson was inaugurated the zealots nearly destroyed the White House and entire Capitol before they set about giving themselves jobs on the govt payroll. In the latter respect JFK and Reagan were no better. We are scarcely better than the countries we complain constantly about. If Obama is trying to send a different msg, it seems he hasn't yet gotten it across. Indeed this has sent entirely the wrong msg. The Million Man March made a lot more sense.

His anti-partisan msg will conflict with his reform msg, in any case, because the only way to achieve the former is on a tide of largess, and we've been there, and done that, already. Everything, it seems, will all-of-a-sudden be labeled "stimulus." But Pet Rocks, pinball and Tupperware parties are not productive. Reform requires rationality and virtue.

In fact, presidential leadership, and congressional wheeling and dealing are both incompatible with the kind of reform we need, which has to come from the within and be exercised in daily life. If we are going to save ourselves it will not be in the halls of power. George Washington, John Adams and the Federalists are blamed for reintroducing the trappings of monarchy. But this is, as Gouvernour Morris had already pointed out in the convention, mistaking character for tyranny.

The House leadership looks to me to be a major stumbling block. They liked his coat-tails well enough, and are willing to let him hang up his icon, but they are not about to pay any real attention to what he says. Add the Republican and Demo conservative opposition and it spells trouble, but given what I am hearing from ppl like Emanuel it is well that it should. The terrifying thought occurred to me Sunday that instead of Barrack, himself, we will be seeing Rahm on all the TV shows for the next four years.

There is no real generational or racial shift here as has been alleged. The last two presidents were baby boomers and it must be acknowledged that electing them was a mistake. We have elected younger than expected presidents on four previous occasions in the past half century. The other two were Carter and JFK and they were not auspicious selections, either. Obama is not an Afro-American in any usual sense of the term, nor even is his wife. In any case, it likely will never be possible to satisfy their demands or raise their self-esteem, just as it will never be able to satisfy the Jews, without some kind of personal epiphany. Letting them whoop it up is not going to change that, but it is going to anger a lot of other folk.

I think Hillary is going to be a bigger pain-in-the-tushy than Condi Rice ever was. Her priorities will be upside-down and backwards. Perhaps, however, by being shunted into this position, she will do less harm than if she were in the Senate. There was a time when Secretary of State was a major step to the presidency, but that time is long gone. If she sought it for that reason, as I suspect she did from the start, she was probably wrong to do so.

It is, btw, a good thing they bailed-out the car cos. Otherwise they would have had to use Mercedes limos and Toyota SUVs.