A Brand New Day

Well there's a lot to say and I haven't had much time to say it cuz I've been a busy beaver lately. It's a brand new day alright. New President, new administration, new policies, new priorities. It's weird being on this side of things, to actually be rooting for the person who's in power, rather than against him. It goes against my contrarian nature, so I shouldn't be too surprised that I already feel my critical tendencies kicking in.

On the plus side, the Inauguration was nice. Certainly historical, and, at times, hysterical, i.e., the way Roberts butchered the oath. I mean what was it, thirty-five words? He couldn't get that out? Just goes to show that you can have one of the best legal minds in the country, you can have a Yale law degree, you can be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and even with all that pedigree, you can still fuck something up. And they actually did it over again last night, lest some asshat from Fox News claim that Obama really wasn't President because the oath didn't go exactly right. Believe it or not, I saw a clip of Chris Wallace doing exactly that.

The speech wasn't Obama's best, but when you're as good as he is, the bar is set pretty high. I think the speech he gave on race relations last June was the best one he's given. His Convention speech was good too. This one sounded a bit dour, a bit negativo for my taste. I know that he was trying to lower expectations, which couldn't be any higher than if you loaded them onto an Apollo rocket and shot them at the sun. Have so many people ever expected so much from one person? It's absurd. So he needed to do a little Scared Straight, but I think he could have balanced it out with some more Happy Days. Still, I liked what he had to say about putting down childish things and reaching out with an open hand if others are willing to unclench their fist. That was some good imagery.

So he's President, now what? Two days in and he's erasing a bunch of bad shit that Bush did. I read today that he signed an Executive Order saying that no one is entitled to rely on any legal memo concerning interrogation of enemy combatants that was drafted between 1999 and January 20, 2009. That's pretty comprehensive, and just so happens to cover the Bush years. Not bad. To Bush's credit, he didn't pardon Scooter Libby OR Roger Clemens. I would have been more pissed about the second one. And he also didn't leave the White House in the crappy shape that Clinton's people did. Let the record show that Bush left the White House with more class than he demonstrated with the policies he adopted when he occupied it.

We're closing Guantanamo, which is good. People are wondering where we're going to put those bad guys now, as if America didn't have thousands of jails already built all over the country. Not in my backyard! you say. I don't want any o' dem TAY-RO-RISTS in MY backyard! Yeah, why the fuck not? If you already have a jail standing in your backyard, why can't some of them go there? Do you mean to tell me that a hardened terrorist from Guantanamo is more dangerous, more crafty, more creepy than a serial killer? Or a gang member? Or some a sociopathic rapist or pedophile who's rotting in an American jail as I write this? Of course they're not! So be not afraid NIMBYITES, for evildoers already occupy your backyard! Besides, prisoners of war should be treated as mandated by the Geneva Convention. Otherwise, give them due process and let's be done with it already. This isn't the Middle Ages. Captured soldiers need to be treated humanely and given some kind of trial. Shit, even the Nazis had Nuremberg. Are they saying Al Qaeda is worse than the Nazis? Seriously? Let me predict this: Guantanamo is going to go down in American history as a modern day version of the Japanese internment camps we had here during World War II. Nothing short of an historical embarrassment.

All that said, I hope Obama's not getting too light in the loafers too quickly here. The world's a dangerous place. We're not going to torture, okay that's fine. That's what I wanted. It doesn't work anyway. But is he really going to criminalize CIA tactics that push the envelope a bit? Not torture, but what about the threat of torture, or the threat of physical harm? That's going to be outlawed too? I'm not sure how I feel about that. I don't think it's in our national interest to make it a crime to THREATEN that you're going to make a captured terrorist's life miserable if he doesn't cooperate. Unless they can show that kindness works better than threats, I think that has to stay on the table. We'll see where this goes. My point is, Obama better remember we're living in the real world, and there are some real sadistic assholes around. Principles are nice, but let's keep our eye on the ball at the same time and try and get a decent balance between our morals and values and common sense ways of handling proven killers.

I think the biggest positive change though is going to be in the State Department. I really like what he's done with the place already. George Mitchell and Richard (I actually wrote "Hal" first) Holbrooke are talented and respected people with great track records. Hillary, love her or hate her, is incredibly smart and stubborn as a mule, so she's perfect for dealing with foreign leaders. And Biden will probably have a thing or two to say about a thing or two. Much better than the mousey State that Condi was running before she left. Diplomacy can't get any worse than it's been the last eight years.

As for the economy, well.... have you ever watched a swirling toilet drain? I guess the first bank stimulus didn't work too well and now they're considering nationalizing American banks. Do you know how insane that is? No one better blame Obama for this country becoming socialist because that started well before he arrived. Nationalized American banks. That's something you see in Brazil and Chile, not the United States. We're going to have to start calling ourselves Los Estados Unidos, just so we'll fit in with all the other Third World economies. My quasicommunist college poli sci professor must be laughing her ass off, wherever she is.

I'll end this by saying something nice. For the first time in my life, I honestly feel that there's an average guy in the White House. A normal guy. A guy with a wife, kids, and even a mother in law living in there. He's not poor, but he sure as hell isn't rich either. He hasn't forgotten his roots. And he genuinely seems to care about doing the right thing and not his own future political ambitions. There was a moment at the Inauguration, before Obama was being introduced to the crowd, when he was walking down a hallway and about to step outside, when I looked at his face and it said "Holy fuck, what the hell did I get myself into?" Right then, everything seemed to hit home for him. "This is real. I'm responsible for all of these people, for the safety of the entire country. I'm the one who's supposed to get us through all of these rocky passes. How the FUCK am I supposed to do all that?" That's what his face said to me. And it was right then that I thought: this guy is a real person, an everyday guy, not some exalted, multimillionaire, insincere politician, who's practiced every action and reaction 1000 times, but a normal, funny, extremely intelligent guy who fist bumps his wife and who just got elected to be the most powerful person in the world.

Um, yeah... but didn't they say some of that about Bush too?