It's Inauguration Day

The rest of that Emily Dickinson poem, I remember it now.

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant---
Success in Cirrcuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind---

This post has been seeping in a bitter marinade for days. Depending on how you want to view it, it's either going to totally ruin your day or not affect it at all. It's true, I want to be as optimistic as I can about this new presidency. I don't care if you're Republican, Democrat, or Communist--after 8 damn years under Bush I don't know how you can NOT be breathing a sigh of relief. I mean really, I know there are still plenty of people that figure Bush did just fine. Well the rest of us not sipping that lukewarm Kool Aid disagree.

But why does it take so long to write a simple post? Lately I've been trying to be more thoughtful as to how I put myself out there when I talk about politics. I really hate them, but I don't want to come off as completely clueless and ham-fisted, as I'm sure I do occasionally.

But why so long to write this post? What disturbs me so much about writing about Obama? Is it that I want to be negative and can't? I want to be positive and can't? Do I just not know what to say?

I want to show you all a post I read at Professor What If's blog, and in a way it might help to explain why I picked out that Dickinson poem as well.

It--the post--talks about comparisons between Obama & MLK. And I think this is where I and probably a lot of people get hung up on the man and we play that Red Light Green Light game with our support.

Let me tell you folks, Obama is not MLK. I'll also go further and say that if people don't stop comparing the man to Abraham-freaking-Lincoln I may pass out in my own fury. He is NEITHER. For all their ideologies perhaps being the same, for FSM's sake Lincoln had a civil war on his damn hands. He had to deal with the South trying to split off in it's own silly little country, and the nation was traumatized by his assassination--oh wait, is THAT what you're trying to say, that he's likely to get assassinated for ______? America can't let itself have anything!

BARACK OBAMA is his own man, and we should NEVER forget that. He is a politician but he quite clearly has his own thoughts and feelings on how things are and will be run. Lately around the blogosphere--which has been making me slightly depressed, but then again so has the weather, nugh--around the blogosphere I said, I've seen a few too many interest blogs treating the man like he's their puppet.

"Oh I hope he does this. Oh he didn't? Damn I should have supported Hillary!"

It's fine to critique the president, it really is--as we learn in art, how does one improve if one doesn't know what one does wrong? But this is the Red Light Green Light shit without even giving him a chance, without him even OFFICIALLY being President yet, and this is another reason I've had such issues trying to get this post down. I really want to. I'm also really afraid that supporters may get so tangled up in their own hype that nothing he does and nothing he says will ever assuage everyone. And truth be told, when has a president ever pleased everyone in the country? But I just feel like the stakes are higher this time about. I wouldn't know how, I feel like I've been stuck in a time capsule for years and this is more or less "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss".

_{I'm not sorry for linking to that Who song, you can't make me be! ...I'm sorry.}

So, all this to say what exactly? There have been many cries of "don't believe the hype!" (okay now I am sorry for that) but those little hysterical cries, after descending into whimpers, seemed to me like they were trying so hard to take away the victory from the Dems. Oh he's not black, he's half white (as I've done in the past, really). Oh he's not a citizen. All these petty arguments that made the opposition sound like sore, sore ass losers. And by opposition I mean strictly Republicans, I can't say anything about third party since I was planning to vote for McKinney anyway (I can, however, talk all the shit I want about Ralph Nader).

And I can't really say how many people that supported Obama actually gulped down all that Obamaid and completely forgot in the midst that this is a human being. I also certainly don't want to take anything away.

So I guess in the end, what do I want to convey to you, exactly? Another reason it's been difficult to get this post down. It's been a wonderful rollercoaster ride. Despite my snark I was so amazingly happy when Obama won and I refused to let anyone take that away from me, despite being in an overwhelmingly Republican state. Even if I didn't support him at first and still look at him with a critical eye, I'm not letting anyone waver my support for the man and all I can really hope for, I suppose, is that he makes the right decisions and if he has to piss off or "let down" a few folks along the way, well, damnit I guess that's what will have to happen.

Just try to remember that he is not Lincoln, he is not FDR, and he is not MLK. He is Barack Obama, 44th president of the US. And this wasn't as insanely cynical as I thought it was going to be! It must be the Snow Day the Invisible Pink Unicorn has blessed me with.

Outtakes: I am a JERK for having to look up whether he was about to become the 44th or 45th president. God, kids, learn your damn US history.