Thoughts on the recent election (and excuses for poor bogging)

I haven’t blogged in a while. That much is clear just from glancing at my blog history. Not only have I had very little “blog worthy” news to relate in recent weeks, but I have also poured far more energy into my old journal lately. I suppose I have been missing the sturdy, old-fashioned feel of a pen in my hand. The sight of an ink-stained pinky and the ache of too many pages, too, have been missing. As readers of this blog can attest, I do not have a whole lot of talent, but I somehow can imagine myself as more of a literary savant when I can hold up pages and pages of untidy scrawl as proof of my (mediocre) genius. Maybe I am getting old, but lately those pages seem more tangible than breezily directing people to “oh, look at my blog.”
In any case, here I am once more determined to have a go at it. I am sure that the vast world of the internet has been feeling so deprived of my random thoughts and commentary lately …
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And now onto my second topic du jour: the election. First of all, allow me just to say this: thank God. Hearing Sarah Palin daily struggle to form coherent sentences for the next four, and possibly eight or more years, might just have killed me. I really did not have that much against John McCain expect for some disagreements on some main policy issues until he chose Gov. Palin as his running mate. I suppose I could have dealt with her occasional gaffes or infuriating way of trucking over the English language almost every time she opened her mouth, but my patience stopped at her pointed disdain for educated and intelligent engagement with the issues. I’m sorry, Ms. Palin, you cannot harp on the inestimable value of good judgment and then condemn a man who worked hard his whole life to put himself through the nation’s best countries in an effort to better inform that judgment. In fact, all your possible claims about the merits of Sen. McCain’s judgment basically went out the window when he selected you as his running mate. Only in his concession speech did he regain some measure of the dignity and self-assurance and conviction that had been lacking in the weeks before. It must have been very difficult, indeed, to run a campaign that attacked so many of the principles upon which he had based his life.
But on to happier matters, we have a new president! And for anyone who knows how rabidly I followed this election, you can well imagine my satisfaction. In fact, many of my friends will likely join me in my profound relief that this election is finally over. I don’t think I could have sustained that kind of intense interest in every political outlet I could think of logging on to for much longer, and I am sure my friends would not have sustained their patience with me much longer.
Of course, as we move forward from the euphoria of the election, the problems facing this president seem even more dire. I am hoping that Obama will prove the right man for the job. After the surreal moments of his election and acknowledgement speech, when all of America stood back in awe of their first bi-racial president, you can tell that a more sober atmosphere has set in. In many ways, that makes me respect the somber tenor of Obama’s speech even more. As an intelligent and self-aware man, I have no doubts that he was aware of the momentousness of the moment, but there was no dazzling gleefulness in his speech. Instead, he spoke in measured tones of the challenges and accomplishments that face us. Many people since then have remarked how presidential he seemed up there at the podium, protected by a wall of transparent bullet-proof glass. But how more remarkable is it that he stood there as exactly the sort of man with exactly the sort of temperament that our country needs right now. After years of apparently arbitrary decisions on any number of issues – torture, patriotism, the firing of federal attorneys – a calm, deliberate approach seems exactly the right prescription. I have always thought any man who wanted to run for president had to be just a touch crazy to want all the awesome and grave responsibilities that come with the office, so it is refreshing to note that Americans have elected (by a landslide) a man who seems to fully grasp the weight of the duties that lie before him. And not three sentences after praising the opportunities that this country affords, he was immediately to work; he turned his mind and the mind of the country right back to the task at hand.
I am eager to see as this transition moves forward how Obama will work to keep the glossy promises of the campaign trail and how he communicates to a nervous country the realities of our situation. I hope that with a president who shows this much promise, Americans all over will devote themselves to making sure he lives up to it.
I know I am prepared to write a couple of op-eds.