Taking It In The Shorts (Cigar Smoke 11-13-08)

Well, I hate to admit it, but I’m devastated by the election. I feel raw inside. And I’m sure many of you are pretty damn concerned for me. I know you feel my pain. So I’m devastated. So be it.

I congratulate Barack Obama. I salute the guy. I think he ran the greatest campaign in American history. He kicked Hillary’s butt and took the other shoe and kicked John’s tush, too. And for the record, I think Obama is head and damn shoulders above either John Kerry or Al Gore. I would take Obama over those two stiffs any day. And I am glad that a black person has been elected president. I just wish it wasn’t this one.

So I salute Obama for his win. And he won the thing fair and square. I’m not going to whine. Yes, I feel like whining. But I am not going to go there. The guy beat us like a damn drum.

I will quibble with a few things, however. I don’t think quibbling is as unseemly as out-and-out whining. First of all, this whole change thing is disturbing to me. Not just because my guy lost. Like on election night, in his acceptance speech, Obama did a rather poor imitation of Martin Luther King when he said something like even if he personally didn’t get there, we would get there as a people.

What the hell does that mean? I’m serious. What is he talking about? Literally. Where is the “there”? I’m sure a lot of you just think I am dense, but would someone tell me in real words —without using the word hope or idealism — where does he want us to go? I really don’t know. Do you? What is on the mountaintop? And why won’t he get there? Why will we get there and he won’t? Why the drama?

Probably the most disturbing thing to me in the campaign was how Obama kept saying he would “fundamentally transform America.” I, for one, do not want America fundamentally transformed. I think America is the greatest country ever conceived and has been and remains the greatest country in the world. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have built the best country ever.

America has created the greatest democratic system of government ever known. We have championed freedom (not equality) to build the best economic system ever known. Capitalism, with all its shortcomings, has proved incredibly better than socialism. Our standard of living and quality of health care for such a large population is unprecedented. Our military has saved the world from many, many scumbag dictators and tyrants. We’re the most generous people ever to inhabit the planet, dwarfing help given by any other country. You want to change all that?

The fact that we even elected a black man to be president is the most recent proof of this. Not that I personally give a shit about race. I could care less that Obama is black. Sure, there is the historical symbolism and all that, but I would never vote for a person because of his skin color. Although I didn’t vote for Obama, I would have voted for Colin Powell a while back, and I would have voted for Condoleezza Rice this year. You know, sometimes discrimination isn’t racism.

Democrats have been pounding us on how bad we are here. How racist we are. How backward we are. Yada friggin yada. Well, over 50 million people voted for a black guy for president. Without Republicans and independents joining the Democrats and voting for him, he would have lost. You wanna change that?

Maybe now we won’t have to listen to the usual Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton blather. There’s a nice change. Maybe we can now shelve all those outdated affirmative action quotas.

You know, this change thing is growing on me.

Obama has openly said that he wants to have the Supreme Court redefine how our school system should be funded to help minorities. Wow! There’s a damn change for you. Why do we even need an executive branch of government or Congress or a Constitution or local governments?

And he advocates redistribution of our wealth. What those big words mean is that if you make $80,000 a year, he would like to take $60,000 of it and give it to three guys who haven’t worked, so everyone will be equal and make $20,000. Yes, I was exaggerating a little there, but not that much. Obama wants to change from equality of opportunity to just plain old equality. That’s a change I don’t want.

One last quibble. Obama says he wants to unify all of us in one glorious united America. Democrats and Republicans holding hands and singing John Denver songs. Pro-life church members coming over to pro-abortion advocates’ houses for nice Sunday dinners. Anti-war demonstrators throwing back a few beers with Marines. Rush Limbaugh and Nancy Pelosi dating. It’s gonna be nifty.

And while Obama was giving his inspirational and unifying acceptance speech, a large throng of Georgetown and other DC college students were out in front of the White House, mocking and jeering President Bush.

I’m feeling warm and fuzzy already.

Jim Laris is for the former publisher and owner of the Weekly. Contact him at jimlaris@mac.com.