This is nothing but a blathering rant, but then hey, so are half the diaries here now. The place is crawling with Republican trollers and their sock puppets, who I suspect account for half the diaries now and three-quarters of the comments.
So it's hard to sort out the smoke and horsecrap from the genuine concerns, but even the genuine concerns are off the rails.
To start, thank God Obama is "drifting towards the center" because, um, that's where the majority of voters are. I for one want to see the guy elected, even if that means he doesn't meet my standards of ideological purity. Some might call this behavior "pandering" or "flip-flipping", especially if they are most interested in seeing another four years of Republican rule.
Yet there are still must be authentic hand wringing on the far Left (I know because CNN told me so) and oh how I wish the Left could wake the hell up. You don't win elections on an ideologically pure far Left agenda, instead you tend to go down in flames. Ask George McGovern.
The whole notion of "flip-flopping" is absurd, unless of course you are John Kerry running against a mindless idealoge bully who prides himself on how much he remains uneffected by facts and public opinion. Myself? I tend to trust a person MORE who tempers their arguments and is willing to compromise to win consensus -- I kind of like the idea of a president who works hard to best represent and serve ALL Americans. I kinda like the image of a candidate who after travelling the country from one end to the other, and listening to thousands of regular folks in places he's never been or well imagined, sits down and says to himself "I think the majority of Americans want to see this" and then shifts his positions. Crazy talk, I know.
Take "patriotism" for example and the dreaded flag pin. Obama starts out, alot like me, and says "Hey, you don't have to wear a pin to prove you love this country." but then, over time, he meets enough people who think the GD pin means something because it means something to them. So, does he continue to pound the table on it to prove he's right? Or does he just concede the dumb issue and put on the stupid pin because it obviously means a great deal to Gracey in Omaha. See? He GETS IT. He gets the part where certain cultural expectations mean alot to people and he RESPECTS THEM for that.
Now onto FISA. Oh my freaking lord. I want to make sure I have this right so please, correct me if I'm wrong and anyone is stil reading this --
You want a Democratic candidate for president to FILIBUSTER, against the will of his own party, during an election year, against the "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act". Got it. Filibuster. As in talk for hours to hold it up from passage. Until what -- he collapses on the Senate floor in a dead faint or millions of letters from concerned Americans who agree with him are dragged in by sweating pages?
Can you even imagine the hay the GOP would make out of this? The endless supply of out of context sound bites a filibuster would provide them? You cannot possibly be that politically niave.
Abortion. Oh pardon Obama for taking the position of the majority of Americans again. How dare he pander to the majority when he is supposed to be on the leash of the Left. Faith-based initiatives -- how dare he see religion as more than zealotry and rightwing crazy talk and reach out to those Americans who do their best volunteering through their church.
Gun control. Congrats to Obama on effectively sidestepping a well planted Republican landmine. So I guess we won't be subjected to hours of "Obama wants guns only in the hands of criminals". I want to kiss his feet for that alone.
OMG! He's acting like a politician? Gee, ya think? But dare I point out, not a "regular politician" or we'd be ass deep in meaningless sound bites and fear-mongering strawmen by now.
OMG! He "threw (fill in the blank) under the bus"? Guess what. It's an election year and any road to the Whitehouse is paved with the carcasses of folks who said the wrong thing. A reminder -- he's not LITERALLY throwing people under moving bus tires, FYI. He's "distancing himself" from controversial and alienating commentary. No one dies, no one is hung in effigy, they only lose the approval of the candidate, oh my.
How dare Obama "abandon" the Left in the attempt to actually unite the majority around commonly shared beliefs? Isn't that our only damn hope afterall? To get passed divisions and move off the polarizing of every issue to some fertile common ground? I'm truly sorry that "compromise" is a dirty word to so many, that the country isn't ready for some purist who passes every litmus test of the Left.
But perhaps what the country needs, what the majority of Americans need, in these so desperate and scary times is not another politician attempting to yank the country one way or the other -- the first coming of the Anti-Bush -- but a leader who can hear, see, respect and is willing to get to know ALL OF US -- someone genuinely determined to serve, not some slate of "progressive ideals" but the collective will of the American people.
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