"Shushing the Baby Boomers."

I linked to this January 2007 NYT piece in the previous post, and I've linked to it before — here and here. Is Obama a Baby Boomer or not? If Obama the solution to the Baby Boomer problem or part of the problem? Obama's ambiguous generationality. Much to say there.

But I've just got to make a separate post to call attention to the historical artifact that is Robert Grossman's illustration depicting Barack Obama leaping over 6 little figures who represent the Baby Boomers:

"Let me give you a quote that he said just four years ago: ‘If you don’t have any fresh ideas, use stale tactics to scare people'..."

"... If you don’t have a record to run on, paint your opponent as someone people should run from. Make a big election about small things... That’s what Barack Obama said when he was running for president in 2008. That’s exactly what Barack Obama has become now that he is president in 2012, and we’re going to change it."

Said Paul Ryan, last night, in Daytona Beach, Florida. I think that's a bit unfair. What about Big Bird? Big Bird isn't little. It goes without saying: Big Bird is big.

Hey, remember that great old Neil Young song about Big Bird?

Blue, blue windows behind the stars, yellow moon on the rise
Big Bird flying across the sky, throwing shadows on our eyes
Leave us helpless, helpless, helpless

The chains are locked and tied across the door... put y'all back in chains....

"A candidate who actually nods when his opponent makes a powerful counterargument—as Obama did several times during the last debate—is a rare bird."

So wrote Slate Culture Critic Meghan O'Rourke on October 28, 2008, in a collection of short statements by various Slate writers, explaining who they were about to vote for and why. For some reason, this article isn't available on line anymore, but it turns up in a Google search as a "doc" file that downloads. I had the text to Google because my son John had blogged it back in '08, and he remembered it and emailed me about it after I blogged today about how I hadn't interpreted Obama's looking down and nodding in a negative way.

Here's O'Rourke's entire statement of why she was voting for Obama:

For his charisma, his cautiousness, and his cool. In a time of high stakes, we need someone who can sort out the best course of action without bridling in anger. A candidate who actually nods when his opponent makes a powerful counterargument—as Obama did several times during the last debate—is a rare bird. Of course, Obama is untested in many regards. My main concern about him is this: How will he deal with making an unpopular or tough decision? Can he keep his cool then without losing confidence in himself? I believe so, and that's why he has my vote.

If you Google that text, you'll get to the document that has the many statements of various writers. I predict there's a lot of raw material for analyzing the state of affairs today. State of affairs... the state of America's affair with Barack Obama.

If you love a man, his passive nodding means one thing. If you've fallen out of love, it's something else. Obama's demeanor at the first debate didn't diminish our affection for him; our reaction to it was evidence of how we already felt.

What can he do now? Act some different way at debate #2? If my hypothesis is correct, it doesn't matter what he does. We won't like it.

ADDED: I'm rooting around in that Slate document. Here's Tim Wu, evincing the classic '08 madness:

Most of all, I like his obvious inner calm. It suggests that his decisions will come from somewhere other than expediency, anger, or fear. It's like electing Obi-Wan Kenobi as president.

And here's some prescience:

Emily Yoffe, "Dear Prudence" Columnist: Obama

Please, please, Barack, don't become another Jimmy Carter.

Hillary in '08: "The Buck Stops In The Oval Office."

Noted by BuzzFeed's Andrew Kaczynski (who might not be a liberal shill, as theorized the other day, and who is linked at Drudge, which must demonstrate the value of not being too much of a liberal shill).

"The buck stops here" is a powerful dictum. We see it in the McCain/Graham/Ayotte statement reprinted in the previous post: "The security of Americans serving our nation everywhere in the world is ultimately the job of the Commander-in-Chief. The buck stops there."

Watch Hillary say it in 2008:



The lady is tough. And now she steps up to "take responsibility." We could have given her responsibility in 2008, but we chose the guy who's standing back and allowing her to "take responsibility."

The BuzzFeed item notes that in the 2008 primaries, Hillary had presented herself as a hands-on leader:

"Being President means being both CEO and COO of one of the largest and most complex organizations in the world," Clinton said.

"I know that we can get on top of this, but it's going to require strong presidential leadership — it's going to require a President who knows from day one you have to run a government and manage the economy," Hillary Clinton added, using the flailing economy to hit Obama. "The buck stops in the Oval Office."

The Obama people — not Obama himself — pushed her back:

"The truth is that we're not running for chief of staff. We're running for President of the United States," David Axelrod said, adding the President's role was to "provide direction and leadership."

Interesting use of "we."

"I think sometimes there's a relentless pursuit of the little picture over there at the Clinton campaign," Axelrod continued. "There are bigger issues at stake here."

Obama was above it all. Up in the stratosphere of visions and dreams. He didn't even drop by to tell Hillary she was wrong about the presidency. Axelrod had to take responsibility for that.

ADDED: Provide direction and leadership? He's leading from behind. Behind Hillary.

If Obama talked like this in 2008...

... how can it be awesomely awful for candidate Romney to articulate his criticism of the present administration?

Video via Ed Morrissey ("I think that policy in Iraq and Afghanistan were perfectly acceptable topics for political debate at that time"), via Instapundit (FLASHBACK: Major-Party Nominee Uses War Deaths To Score Political Points. Yeah, but he was a Democrat, and black, and hence above media criticism.").

Can we get some consistency from the big-media pundits? Shouldn't the NYT, for example, have noticed by now that new media is dogging them, and we have YouTube? I mean, they've got to feel how it's screwed up the economics of newspapers. But to ignore the way they undermine their credibility — don't they see how damaging it is to the political power they clearly want? That is, if they want that power, they need to make sure it is not clear.

The more MSM lets their lust show, the less likely we highly selective swing voters will spend any time with you. You have to insinuate yourself into our minds, and you've triggered our resistance. We're turned off. Yes, the base loves what you're saying, but they didn't need to be seduced.

No, I won't apologize for voting for Obama, but Meade regrets voting for McCain.

My refusal to apologize hinges on my 3 reasons for voting for Obama: 1. I wanted Democrats to have to take responsibility terrorism and security issues instead of being able to get away with sniping from the sidelines, 2. The central issue of the day was economics, and McCain had professed and demonstrated that he was unprepared to handle it, and 3. I believed Obama had the potential to advance us in some new way on racial matters.

In 2012, from my point of view: 1. Mission accomplished, 2. McCain isn't the alternative to Obama, and 3. Potential miserably squandered as a flailing Democratic party and its media facilitators use race any old way they want in the short-sighted pursuit of partisan goals.

And what about Meade? Last night, as we watched the GOP convention — and he fully intends to vote for Romney — he told me he's sorry he voted for McCain. Paul Ryan was speaking. This and more could not have happened without Obama. (I'll let Meade explain more in the comments, and I encourage you to try to understand why he's thinking this now.)

"Study shows Palin treated differently by media as vice presidential candidate than Biden."

I know. Big surprise. But it's a study.

"The Zimmerman family is in hiding because of the threats that have been made against us..."

"... yet the DOJ has maintained an eerie silence on this matter. These threats are very public. If you haven’t been paying attention just do a Google search and you will find plenty. Since when can a group of people in the United States put a bounty on someone’s head, circulate Wanted posters publicly, and still be walking the streets?"

A letter from some unnamed relative of George Zimmerman to Attorney General Eric Holder.

Good lord, what an ugly place we are in right now. Who would have thought that in the last year of Obama's presidential term, the public mind would obsess over race at this level? I'm recalling the media coverage of election night, 2008, and the inauguration, when there was a rhapsody of closure and a feeling — some called it "hope" — that we had entered a new era of harmony. How did we get sucked into some nightmare parody of the past? If it's not Obama's fault, can he at least do something to yank us up out of this awful place? In 2009 or even 2011, he would have given a speech. He would have believed he could rescue us with a speech, perhaps because we kind of thought he could. Maybe no one believes anymore. There's a hope vacuum, and look what's moving in.

About that Romney line: "He's a nice guy, but he's in over his head."

James Taranto says:

"He's a nice guy, but . . ." is exquisitely condescending. It's probably not true: Obama strikes us as a petulant narcissist. But calling someone a "nice guy" is rarely a genuine compliment, and it never is when conjoined by "but." As any man who has ever been rejected by a woman knows, describing someone as "a nice guy, but . . ." is another way of saying he's ineffectual. That is exactly the point Romney is making about Obama.

First of all: Obama is not our boyfriend. He/we sometimes act like he is. I've had a blog tag "Obama the Boyfriend" for a long time.  There's this longstanding notion that everyone likes Obama, that he's just soooo likable.

Remember back in January 2008, when Hillary Clinton was asked to deal with her shocking likability deficit next to The Most Likable Man in the World?



But anyway, Taranto's right about what Romney is saying, especially since Romney comes right out and says it: He's in over his head. But the "nice guy" part is, I think, really the ritual of acknowledging that we all [almost all!] like Obama. This ritual goes back to 2008. Remember how John McCain refrained from any sort of personal attack on Obama. Wasn't that the central aspect of Sarah Palin's "going rogue" — that she wanted to light into Obama?

This reminds me of something I heard Rush Limbaugh say on his show yesterday. He was reading from this article by National Review's Jim Geraghty — "Do Wavering Obama Voters Think the Man They Voted for Is Naïve?" Geraghty said (boldface added):

Not long ago, our great deputy managing editor Kevin Williamson noted: "The most acute division on the right -- the one that will give Mitt Romney the most trouble -- is not between moderates and hard-core right-wingers, between electability-minded pragmatists and ideologues, or between the Tea Party and the Republican establishment. It is between those Republicans who disagree with Barack Obama, believing his policies to be mistaken, and those who hate Barack Obama, believing him to be wicked. Mitt Romney is the candidate of the former, but is regarded with suspicion, or worse, by the latter the latter..."

Rush adds "It's not about 'hate,' but I'll get to that in a minute.

"[T]he latter are after something more: a national repudiation of President Obama, of his governmental overreach, and of managerial progressivism mainly as practiced by Democrats but also as practiced by Republicans." 

Rush goes on, circling in on Romney:

We don't hate Obama; we despise what he's doing to the country!  And, yeah, it does require a massive turnaround.  And it does require a massive repudiation of his policies....

And this is one of the problems that people on my side have with Romney. They don't think Romney or the Republican establishment cares that much about repudiating what Obama has done. They just want to beat him. They just want back in control....

Anyway, [Geraghty's] piece is all about how do you persuade these Obama voters to vote for the Republican next time.  Because, "Generally speaking, people hate admitting they made a mistake -- particularly over a decision that is culturally regarded as important as one’s presidential choice." This was a presidential election, and it was the first black president, and a lot of people are gonna be emotionally attached to that as the right thing to have done regardless. Because that says I'm a big person.  I'm an open-minded person.  So persuading that group of people that they made a mistake, that's a toughie.

By the way, I'm one of those people. I voted for Obama. Limbaugh is trying to understand people like me. Is the McCain/Romney he's-a-nice-guy pose better than a Palin/Santorum straightforward attack — when it comes to convincing people who feel whatever it is we feel toward Obama the Boyfriend?

These emotional attachments are tough, tough things.

Sayeth Rush:

So "a lot of Obama voters must be persuaded that they made the wrong choice in 2008, and that it isn't their fault... Those who voted for Obama won't call him stupid, and certainly don't accept that he's evil. But they have seen grandiose promises on the stimulus fail to materialize, Obamacare touted as the answer to all their health care needs and turn out to be nothing of the sort, pledges of amazing imminent advances in alternative energy, and so on," and none of it has happened.....

Here's what we're up against.  A lot of people thought Obama was smartest president ever 'cause that's what they were told.  There had been nobody like him before! He was the Great Unifier.  The rest of the world was gonna love us...

Where you had a lot of people who thought they were making history voting for the first black to run for the presidency, by the same token, these people don't want to admit that the first black president's a failure.  They don't have the guts to say it. They don't want to think it. They don't want to believe it. Because of the racial component.  So then intervention is called for, and these voters are going to need a trip back to Realville.  It's going to be very tricky convincing them that they did all this but it wasn't their fault....

But I do know that persuasion often does not happen by getting in somebody's face and wagging a finger at 'em, telling them they're wrong....

So... Romney's the best choice?

"If we're seeking to persuade Obama voters that it's okay to vote for someone else this time, perhaps we need to reinforce that notion that he just doesn't quite understand how things work in the real world -- that he understands the theories of job creation, but not the practice. He talks about a future of algae-powered cars while rejecting pipelines." Basically, we have to kind of convince people we've got somebody here that just isn't up to the job. That may be why Romney's saying what he's saying.  You know, Romney's making a big point of saying (paraphrased), "Look, he's a nice guy, just in over his head."  This is practically the same thing.  So there's probably some oppo research going around and some focus group research saying this is how you have to go about it."

Funny. Limbaugh refrains from endorsing a candidate, but I had thought — from listening to many recent shows — that he would end by saying Geraghty is one of those establishment Republican types who just want to get back in power and don't understand the real passion of those who want to repudiate everything Obama stands for, and that we really do need more of an attack dog like Santorum. But he didn't end that way. So I think Limbaugh understands the importance of the "he's a nice guy" component of an criticism of the President.

I suspect that those in the know perceive this fling with Santorum as an opportunity to satisfy the Obama haters, and they all know that after all the excitement — jeez, Santorum as excitement! — we're all going to settle down and marry Romney.

Romney the Husband.

The potential for a Barack Obama nostalgia movement in the next 13 months.

Remember how you felt in '08? Maybe not you, specifically, but remember the hope? The inspiration? Don't you want to feel like that again? Etc. etc.

Picture it. I think it's possible that the Obama 2012 campaign could touch many people — people who are suffering, out of work, occupying Wall Street (or wherever) — by prompting them to get in touch with the great old feeling of the good old days... in 2008... when we were young... when we had dreams...

I know you may scoff and say that every single reference to the abstractions and fuzzy feelings of 3 years ago will only draw derision and intensify the pain. But there's so much pain... At some point, won't people want to take the drug that worked so well that other time. What intense pleasure! What brilliant hallucinations! It calls to you.

Well, not necessarily you. But you see my point?

This notion crossed my mind while I was watching this February 2008 video of Michelle Obama. I'd been searching for that old quote of hers, something like Barack will never allow you to go back to your old lives.



The actual quote is: "Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."

My initial reaction to that today was that it was weird how much she's insulting people... and they love it. They wanted transformed lives, but look how bad things are today. We really were deprived of our "lives as usual," but not in a good way.

The larger context of the quote is:

Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.

See? You have the problem of being cynical and isolated. You're too comfortable. You need to do a whole lot better. Barack Obama will require you to work. I know: ridiculous. Now. Lines like that stoke the very cynicism he demanded that we shed!

That was my initial reaction. But then I saw the potential. The cynicism may seem much more justified now, but it also hurts, and people remember when words like this made them feel as good as they've ever felt about politics in their whole lives.

Don't you see the potential for hordes of people to embrace the simple pleasures of nostalgia? When I drive my car, I turn on the satellite radio and put on the 60s channel, where I'm always young and carefree. It's 2011, but I can push the button for the 60s, musically. There's a political button marked 2008, and I think there's a decent chance there are a whole lot of people who would love to push it.

Adam Serwer doubles down on race after WaPo played its embarrassingly weak race card on Rick Perry.

From his perch at Mother Jones, Serwer says:

You might have anticipated that Perry would face a firestorm for being associated with the property, but it's Cain whose remarks are drawing the most criticism from the right. At RedState, Erick Erickson concluded, "It also seems to be a slander Herman Cain is picking up and running with as a way to get into second place." Glenn Reynolds remarked that until now, Cain's "big appeal is that he's not just another black race-card-playing politician." Over at the Daily Caller, Matt Lewis called Cain's remarks "a cheap shot, and, perhaps a signal that Cain is willing to play the race card against a fellow Republican when it benefits him."...

[It's not] just because Cain is attacking a fellow Republican, but because he stepped out of the proper role of a black conservative, which is to reassure Republicans that their political problems with race are the inventions of a liberal conspiracy....

And the Democratic template is to reassure Democrats that the Republicans have a race problem. That's what the Washington Post was doing, and that's what Serwer is doing now.

[C]onservatives might rally around Perry's embattled campaign because a man with the living memory of what life was like for black people in the segregated South had the chutzpah to suggest that there was something "insensitive" about a place called "Niggerhead." Meanwhile, Cain, whose stock was rising prior to the controversy, may have harmed his own presidential ambitions with the mere suggestion that a white Republican had been "insensitive" on an issue of race. How's that for postracial?

Just to turn down the heat a notch, I think the problem in what Cain said was a mistake in the facts as he was perhaps surprised by a question about a story that had just appeared in the news. He seems to miss the point that the word was painted over and he seems to think that "Niggerhead" was the official name of the place:

AMANPOUR: ... And it's been -- it's been painted over. But the report raises questions about whether this rock, this stone, with that word on it, was still on display even quite recently in the last several years. What is your reaction to that?

CAIN: My reaction is that is very insensitive.... And since Governor Perry has been going there for years to hunt, I think that it shows a lack of sensitivity for a long time of not taking that word off of that rock and renaming the place. It's just basically a case of insensitivity.

AMANPOUR: It was painted over.

CAIN: Yes. It was painted over. But how long ago was it painted over? So I'm still saying that it is a sign of insensitivity.

Cain showed an insufficient concern about accuracy, to the point where Amanpour had to prompt him about the facts. He was helping WaPo propagate its meme about Perry, southerners, and racism. To give him a pass on that because he's "a man with the living memory of what life was like for black people in the segregated South" — as Serwer put it — is patronizing. I doubt very much that Herman Cain wants that kind of special treatment. But, of course, it isn't really any kind of caring concern for this man and his painful memories. It's one more application of the template: Republicans have a race problem. Serwer is happy to perform that service. How's that for postracial?

Or is "How's that for postracial?" — Serwer's question, above — a taunt only to be aimed at Republicans? Democrats want to keep playing the race card game, right? Oh, I don't know. I seem to remember a presidential candidate back in 2008 making us feel that we were about to move into the postracial era. Was I only dreaming?

Obama wisecrack: "Maybe I should throw the game."

Spoken during the 2008 campaign, in the context of observing all the problems the next President would face.

Quoted by Maureen Dowd, who, naturally, wisecracks that he must now wish he had.

It's not really very funny. On the other hand, why does anyone step up to be President? It's some evidence of Obama's normality, which was one thing I always found appealing. You'd think it would only be really weird folk who'd decide they should be President and can actually handle the impossible job of dealing with all of the problems in the world and putting up with being the biggest punching bag in the world. And here was someone seemingly normal willing to do it... and perhaps as able to do the impossible as anyone else (and more able than John McCain).

More Dowd (boldface by me):

Obama’s re-election chances depend on painting the Republicans as disrespectful. So why would the White House act disrespectful by scheduling a speech to a joint session of Congress at the exact time when the Republicans already had a debate planned?...

Obama is still suffering from the Speech Illusion, the idea that he can come down from the mountain, read from a Teleprompter, cast a magic spell with his words and climb back up the mountain, while we scurry around and do what he proclaimed.

The days of spinning illusions in a Greek temple in a football stadium are done. The One is dancing on the edge of one term.

The White House team is flailing — reacting, regrouping, retrenching. It’s repugnant.

Re-re-re-spect-spect-spect-spect. (I'm supplying the pop culture reference that I expected to pop out of Dowd, given her usual style and how clearly set up that one seems. Is it a reach to suggest that she wanted to reference the famous Aretha Franklin recording, and she or her editor fretted that it would seem racial?)

"Working in the Coal Mine."

At Meadhouse this morning, we're talking about the song "Working In The Coal Mine," not because of the abysmal jobs situation these days, but because... well, because there was a little too much milk in my coffee. (This stream of consciousness has nothing to do with the suffering of unemployment and working in coal mines, so please forgive me.)

Meade decided to make me a double-shot, and I — helpful in my usual abstracted way — started playing "Double Shot of My Baby's Love" (by the Swingin' Medallions) — a song about a woman who "loved [her man] so hard" that he woke up with... "the worst hangover [he] ever had."

That got me talking about the frat rock cassette recording that I bought when my kids were very young. It had "Double Shot" along with stuff like "Hang On Sloopy" and "Louie Louie." It was one of a series of tapes that I bought to play in the car after I realized that rock and roll oldies were good children's music. (Well, not "Double Shot.") I first had this realization back in the 1980s when, for some reason — maybe a toddler said "ya ya" — I started singing "Sitting in Ya Ya Waiting for my La La." Baby talk!

"Who sang that?" I ask, playing it on YouTube. Meade says "Sam Cooke." No! It's Lee Dorsey! Do you know any other Lee Dorsey songs? There's only one other that you might remember. It's this. "Working in the Coal Mine." (Not to be confused with this Sam Cooke song, which is, frankly, much better... as a recording. I will not compare the degree of workplace suffering described in the 2 songs.)

But check out these 2 other recordings of "Working in the Coal Mine" — this and this. I can't picture any of those people actually working in a coal mine, but in a pinch, if I had to say, I'd pick The Judds.

Have you had enough coffee this morning? I have.

ADDED: "Get your ya-yas out." Remember when Barack Obama said it? Back in June 2008, when he was thanking his campaign workers for "submerging their egos." The "Ya-yas" remark comes at 10:45. But start here:



Based on that part — before the "ya-yas," I think he didn't expect to win in Iowa. "If I'd lost Iowa, it would have been okay." But: "Because we won, we now have no choice." It seems as though he'd intended to make his mark, then reemerge in 2012 or 2016 as the frontrunner. But he won. It came too soon. Yet he had to plunge forward. It was all a crazy miscalculation. He just didn't expect to be that loved in Iowa.

And now, it's 2011, primary time once again, and our nation turns its lonely eyes to you, Iowa, ya ya ya.

"'Release Baby Release' is the new 'Drill Baby Drill.'"

And candidate Obama told us in '08 it was going to be his "policy to use the strategic petroleum reserves as a market cushion."

"What I said was the same thing that the audience here today heard me say, which is, if Pakistan is unable or unwilling to hunt down bin Laden and take him out, then we should."

"Now, that I think has to be our policy, because they are threatening to kill more Americans," said Barack Obama at the Town Hall Debate, on October 7, 2008.



Meade woke up this morning wanting to look that up. Speaking of things clarified during sleep, I woke up on the morning of October 8, 2008 and "decided to concentrate my mind on the question which man won the debate.... It was Barack Obama...." That was the post where I abandoned my vow of "cruel neutrality" as an observer of the 2008 campaign, and said my vote for Obama was "almost inevitable." After the election, when I analyzed my path of decisionmaking — in the post called "How McCain Lost Me" — I said: "So this was the crucial tipping point. Dear readers, it was right there, the morning after the Town Hall debate."

And now, 2 1/2 years after he voted for McCain, here's Meade, drawn back to that same debate. He IM's me the link to that clip about Pakistan. We talk at some length, and he tells me I made the right decision. So you wish you'd voted for him? Yes.

Larry King asked: "If you were president and knew that bin Laden was in Pakistan, you know where, would you have U.S. forces go in after him?"

It was 2008, and John McCain answered: "Larry, I'm not going to go there and here's why: because Pakistan is a sovereign nation."

(I voted for Obama, because John McCain lost me.)

Things said about Dick Cheney lead me to reaffirm my decision to vote for Obama.

Instapundit picked up on the Cheney-hate wisecrack I blogged yesterday:

CIVILITY CAMPAIGN NOT CATCHING ON: “Cheney’s heart transplant. Wouldn’t that be the worst day ever? Not only are you dead but they’ve given your heart to THAT prick!”

Plus, from the comments: “Obama ends up adopting half these policies in his continuance of his war on terror. And yet, whereas these policies made Cheney Darth Vader and the Emperor rolled into one, under Obama these policies are not even worth mentioning.” That Obama adopted them too only makes Cheney more evil — for undermining the fierce moral urgency of change. And then mocking The One for going along.

That last link goes to Tom Maguire, who notes Glenn Greenwald's moaning over Cheney's solemn observation that Obama, as President, has recognized the importance of the Bush administration's policies and made them his own:

“I think he’s been through the fires of becoming president and having to make decisions and live with the consequences,” Cheney said. “I think he’s learned that what we did was far more appropriate than he ever gave us credit for while he was a candidate ... I think he’s learned from experience.”

And I just want to say that this is part of why I voted for Obama. I explained my vote on November 9, 2008, just after the election and made a prediction that I think you should now see was right. Here's the key part, where I quote what I blogged on October 30:

October 30: I come to terms with the problem of 1-party government:

Usually, I prefer divided government, but that doesn't mean I need to support McCain. I've seen McCain put way too much effort into pleasing Democrats and flouting his own party, and I can picture Obama standing up to the Democratic Congress and being his own man. What, really, will he owe them? McCain, by contrast, will need them. And we've seen that he wants to be loved by them.

Sometimes, I think that letting the Democrats control everything for 2 years would work out just fine. Let one party take responsibility for everything. When they can't whine and finger-point, what will they actually step up and do? It will be interesting to know. And it will do the Republicans good to retool and define themselves, with an eye toward the 2010 election. I'd like to see this clarification after so many years of obfuscation.

This goes along with my problem that McCain had abandoned the effort to define himself as conservative. I could see myself voting for a conservative. I would like some good conservatism. But I did not see it in McCain. Certainly, just bringing in Palin was no substitute for having his own clear principles.

Also in that November 9th post I quote something I wrote on November 3:

One thing I don't like about John McCain is that he never showed respect for Bush. He was all about distancing himself from Bush, but if it's distance you want from Bush, there's Obama. And Obama had no reason to defend the other party's President, but for all his criticism of Bush's policies, I don't remember Obama taking ugly potshots at Bush. McCain treated Bush like an outcast. Was there even a word of defense for the man who protected us from terrorist attacks for 7 years?

Before you bitch about Obama, do a clear, honest visualization of where we'd be right now if McCain were President. Take account of the benefit we have received as the Obama administration has had to embrace many of Bush's policies, and these things have become the norm. And look at what the Republicans have done with their period of exile. Now, seriously picture what the political discourse would be if the Republicans had held onto power.

I know some of you are ready to list the terrible things the Democrats did in their 2 years of dominance. I'm not saying there wasn't a down side. The Democrats did a lot more damage than I thought possible. But McCain would have gone along with a lot of things, and there would be continuing partisan criticism about the wars. Everything having to do with national security would be pinned on McCain and presented in the worst possible light, for the aggrandizement of the Democratic Party.

If McCain had won, we would not have experienced the revitalization of the conservative movement that had such a tremendous effect on the 2010 elections and is shaping the next presidential election. Finally, think about all the angst there would be right now over the lost opportunity to experience the brilliant hope that was Barack Obama. Instead of the wistful imaginings of the glories of Obama administration that could have been, we have the reality. We get to see it, criticize it, and sharpen our conservative politics on it.

Elizabeth Edwards is dying.

And she says a few words via Facebook:

She did not mention Mr. Edwards in her message on Monday.

“There are certainly times when we aren’t able to muster as much strength and patience as we would like. It’s called being human,” Mrs. Edwards wrote. “But I have found that in the simple act of living with hope, and in the daily effort to have a positive impact in the world, the days I do have are made all the more meaningful and precious. And for that I am grateful.”

She did not apologize to us for participating in the deceit perpetrated by John Edwards, which skewed the 2008 Democratic primaries.

ADDED: Death don't have no mercy.

Bush: "I had to endorse [McCain]. But I’d have endorsed Obama if they’d asked me."

I get it.

I totally get it.

Peter Berkowitz collects quotes from 2008 saying conservatism in America is over forever.

And:

The credit for galvanizing ordinary people and placing individual freedom and limited government back on the national agenda principally belongs to President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Their heedless pursuit of progressive transformation reinvigorated a moribund conservative spirit, just as in 1993 and 1994 the Clintons' overreaching on health care sparked a popular uprising resulting in a Republican takeover of Congress.

So it wasn't that conservative principles caught hold of America. It was that the progressives scared the hell out of us.