My thoughts... written in a kind of obsolete vernacular
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Obama's Inaugural
A historic day, no doubt. I think we're in no danger of overlooking this. The media is behaving a little different than during Bush's, huh? There are 240 million people in this country who did not vote for Obama, including the 58 million who voted for John McCain. While it's great that we've reached a point as a country where we can elect an African-American, that doesn't mean it's good for the country to have Barack Obama as president, just as it would have been bad for the country to have Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton in the Oval Office.
Obama's inaugural address was supposed to be soaring, words that would go down in history, words that would inspire a generation. I thought his speech was unmemorable and unfocused. I thought he was unfair to President Bush ("we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our boundaries" as if Bush's $15 billion in spending to fight HIV/AIDS was nothing). The most memorable part of the ceremony was the prayer at the end by Rev. Joseph Lowery:
We ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right.
Apparently a black president means nothing in the civil rights movement. The entire prayer was nothing but a political speech to God, punctuated with demeaning comments about whites and Asians.
2 comments:
Anonymous
said...
That was indeed a very odd line to put in a prayer on this, or any, occasion. Clearly if Rick Warren had said such nonsense there would be all kinds of chatter about it for the next year.
I was struck by the general sense of goodwill towards Obama yesterday by nearly all, but especially those on the right. Watching Fox News (of course) yesterday all the commentators were gracious and so excited. I think that in part this is a credit to President Obama's personality--he's very affable and charming and has thus far has been much more moderate than his past record would have led me to believe.
I think also this is a credit to the quality of character of the conservative American voter. We do not throw pies at those who disagree with us. We do not say nonsense such as "Obama hates white people." We do not talk down our president to foreigners. We do not have riots if we lose elections. We do not liken our president or troops to the worst people in history (ie Hitler, Genghis Khan, etc.). We do not ruin people's lives because they support a ballot initiative we do not. I could continue but you get the point.
It is my hope, that as the year goes on this goodwill continues. It is also my hope that as disagreements arise with this administration, conservatives will disagree in an intellectual and respectful manner. Let us not resort to the insulting way that Bush was treated or even the way that Clinton was treated. That would seem to me to be change that conservatives, especially Christian conservatives, can believe in.
Well put. I will do my best to disagree in a respectful manner. I'm sure I'll fail at times, so I'll count on you to reign me in, Scott.
I agree that Obama has, so far, been less liberal than one would suspect based on his background. Keeping Gates as Secretary of Defense was certainly a surprise. However, I have no doubt that Obama plans to take this country hard to the left while attempting to convince everyone he is being "moderate."
We need only look at two of his top priorities as president: eliminating all restrictions on abortion and the Employee Free Choice Act which will eliminate the right of a secret ballot for workers considering unionization. This legislation is about one thing: trampling over workers' rights in order to boost the power of labor unions and the Democratic party they whole heartedly support.
I'm also interested to see what Obama's plans are for the terrorists at Guantanamo.
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2 comments:
That was indeed a very odd line to put in a prayer on this, or any, occasion. Clearly if Rick Warren had said such nonsense there would be all kinds of chatter about it for the next year.
I was struck by the general sense of goodwill towards Obama yesterday by nearly all, but especially those on the right. Watching Fox News (of course) yesterday all the commentators were gracious and so excited. I think that in part this is a credit to President Obama's personality--he's very affable and charming and has thus far has been much more moderate than his past record would have led me to believe.
I think also this is a credit to the quality of character of the conservative American voter. We do not throw pies at those who disagree with us. We do not say nonsense such as "Obama hates white people." We do not talk down our president to foreigners. We do not have riots if we lose elections. We do not liken our president or troops to the worst people in history (ie Hitler, Genghis Khan, etc.). We do not ruin people's lives because they support a ballot initiative we do not. I could continue but you get the point.
It is my hope, that as the year goes on this goodwill continues. It is also my hope that as disagreements arise with this administration, conservatives will disagree in an intellectual and respectful manner. Let us not resort to the insulting way that Bush was treated or even the way that Clinton was treated. That would seem to me to be change that conservatives, especially Christian conservatives, can believe in.
Well put. I will do my best to disagree in a respectful manner. I'm sure I'll fail at times, so I'll count on you to reign me in, Scott.
I agree that Obama has, so far, been less liberal than one would suspect based on his background. Keeping Gates as Secretary of Defense was certainly a surprise. However, I have no doubt that Obama plans to take this country hard to the left while attempting to convince everyone he is being "moderate."
We need only look at two of his top priorities as president: eliminating all restrictions on abortion and the Employee Free Choice Act which will eliminate the right of a secret ballot for workers considering unionization. This legislation is about one thing: trampling over workers' rights in order to boost the power of labor unions and the Democratic party they whole heartedly support.
I'm also interested to see what Obama's plans are for the terrorists at Guantanamo.
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