Today our country celebrates/commemorates/observes the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Coincidentally, it’s the last day of the Bush Administration, and the Eve of the ObamaNation. (Ahem.) The Chosen One has been busy in the last two weeks, with his faithful media lapdogs casting him as a combination of the second comings of Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and Jesus Christ. Pretty big boots to step into, if you ask me, but the media assures us that he’s up to the task. We’ve been treated to breathless stories of how Obama has but four years to “fix” global warming or we’re all doomed, and how the Messiah is going to undo eight years of the “evils” of the Republicans.
I find it interesting that everything Obama has done so far, has been of a symbolic nature. The train ride to D.C. – the nomination speech – the Berlin address. That’s great if you’re going after a marketing award. Not so much if you’re the leader of the free world. Tomorrow, we get to see what Obama’s made of. It’s time for substance over symbolism – admittedly not the Democrats strongest trait.
I, for one, plan to sit back and watch, and to try to avoid as much sniping from the sidelines as possible. Several reasons for this – first, we might as well give him/them a chance…like it or not, he’s our President, too. Second, based on the “give a man enough rope and he’ll hang himself,” it’s time to call the Democrats bluff. The Dems have been grousing for eight years that we’re not doing it their way. Tomorrow, they run fresh out of excuses. Third, saying “I told you so” really doesn’t work until they’ve had a chance to royally screw up. That takes time – even for Democrats.
So I plan to give the festivities tomorrow the same kind of attention and respect that Obama gave to the final public address by President Bush…that is to say, I’m going to do my best to ingore it completely, and hope against hope that this is not the Winter of our country’s discontent.
I watched his inauguration speech from Indonesia. And that was cool.