It would take a heart of stone not to be moved last night as the election results came in — regardless of preferred candidate. Real world spontaneous horn honking, the simple jump for joy on sidewalks, the beaming smiles in the Imperial City gave concrete manifestation to the synthetic, 1080P HiDef imagery that beamed out of Grant Park around the world.
Kyle Poole, 48, a financier, said he brought a flag because he felt “honored and proud.”
“I was once a Republican,” he said. “Then George Bush came to the White House and now I’m thrilled to be here with the flag.”
Inquire and Tblisi offer a realistic view of world post-celebration hang over. We share their caution. Domestically, Obama inherits almost incomprehensible wreckage, the financial catastrophe being merely the first among many examples. A tour de horizon overseas is perhaps even more sobering.
Obama would be wise to take a page from other self-made pop culture media constructs such as Bowie as Ziggy Stardust, Madonna (or even Nixon’s 1968 ‘the New Nixon’). He himself should ‘auto destruct’/deflate his saintly aura. His image served electoral politics well. As he transitions to granular government, we recommend he actively create himself a new post election ‘Obama’ personna and product. He himself rather than the media should rollout his own new guise. For we do believe an Obama Administration will, like the Warlords’, be one of Permanent Campaign.
As comments here noted in the earlier post, his speech at Grant Park did not soar in historical terms. Yet he did introduce elements of a new post larval being. Lingering euphoria through January 2009 aside, covertly pro-Obama Republicans and non-fringe Left/progressives would accept domestically competent management as palatable come down.
Pat Buchanan this morning offered his belief that the ‘Movement’ is in historic eclipse. He went so far as to claim the Nation is moving Center/Left. We are less sanguine for a long list of reasons (Father Meacham aside). The Movement now is no longer just an electoral entity — it suffuses the Executive and Judiciary from GS7s all the way up.
There are faint glimmers of hope that Obama is considering knife fighters who are capable of conducting critically necessary reviews and purges of the thoroughly infected government apparat. We’ve all discussed this together over the last year Dear Reader. Our sense remains, however, that Obama will in the end decline to pursue matters to their logical and political conclusion. Accommodation and ‘change’ may blur together sooner than many expect or hope.
Comment says
Hedges is a tool – Before inevitbale burnout, he was a fine reporter for many years, but he forgot (somewhere along the way) that no one really cares what he thinks. Plus, he often flashes his irrelevent credentials to make a point – He is fond of telling people he studied at divinity school and when he does this he reminds of those neocon scholars who try to bill themselves as “experts on Islam.” Yeah – wtf!
Hedges comes accross as someone who is either deeply depressed or shell shocked or suffering from some malady (nothing wrong with that) and he projects that on to the world he describes. Does Obama use manipulative sloganeering? Yeah – so what? Who doesn’t? Could
Hedges win an election anywhere? No way. Besides his stupid reading level point was disproved by Obama’s speaking at 1960 10th grade levels and winning.
Perhaps Hedges was inspiring back in his divinity days, but we doubt that.