Strung together, it’s actually pretty amazing Canada or Mexico didn’t decide we were ripe for the picking and invade. WTF?!?!

Also, “eight years in eight minutes” from Keith Olbermann:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLpkeDg7uyI]

Despite all the heated rhetoric of the primary season, I share Sullivan’s slightly cynical [...]]]>

Photo by Damon Winter/NYT (h/t Good)

Pictures are very often worth much more than 1,000 words, and something about this one, as the rumors of Clinton being on the verge of becoming Obama’s Secretary of State appear to be true, is oddly reassuring.

Despite all the heated rhetoric of the primary season, I share Sullivan’s slightly cynical take on it:

The differences between Clinton and Obama were always exaggerated; and we need all the talent we can get. I defer to no one in Clinton Derangement Syndrome, which is why I believe it’s good for them to have their hands full and to be kept under surveillance.

I didn’t like the idea of her as President (or Vice President), as much because of the question of Bill as her own deficiencies as a leader — which in some ways are directly related to each other — but I kind of like the idea of her and Obama becoming the new faces of the US abroad. It’s a powerful symbolic combination for a country that purports to be dedicated to the idea of all “men” being created equal.

It’s important to remember that the “change” Obama represents is one of leadership and prioritization, not necessarily personnel; he can’t just conjure a cabinet and staff of virginal outsiders who wave their magic “change” wands and get all of his proposals pushed through in his first term.

ETA: Ben Wyskida has an excellent, thoughtful post — Change is the policy, not the people. — over at Pinko Magazine that’s a must-read for the knee-jerks on the left who are fretting over some of the appointments Obama has made so far.

Carter and Clinton, our last two Democratic Presidents, won elections and made the kind of genuine progressive appointments that we long for today. They challenged entrenched power right from the start. And they failed. Today we have a President four years out of the Illinois State Senate taking office in the midst of two wars and an enormous crisis. To me, having an administration that is helmed at the start by people who run solid organizations, who can learn from past mistakes, and who know realistically how to move legislation is what we want. It’s entirely possible that Obama won, sat down in some meetings, crunched the numbers, reviewed the security briefings and said, OMFG. Maybe it is more important to have a steady team some of whom have been there before, given the gravity of the challenges they face right now. I think that’s fine too. Some early successes are important.

What attracted me to Obama the most was his pragmatism, and I think Clinton as Secretary of State is a smart pragmatic choice for all parties involved. For Clinton, it’s way more high-profile and powerful than any of her other options, and it offers an immediate shot at redemption for some of the bad calls she made in the Senate and during the primary. For Obama, it keeps both her and Bill close, limiting the damage they can do as freelancers waiting for an opening, while enabling him to take advantage of their deep network to help get things done in other areas.

ETA #2: Sullivan sums it up perfectly:

By winning without them and even, in some measure, despite them, Obama can now bring the Clintons into the power structure while retaining clear dominance. The State Department appointment is prestigious enough not to be condescending, yet also keeps Clinton off the Washington circuit more than any other position. She’ll be on a plane or abroad a great deal. Extra bonus: Bill will just love that. Sending his wife to the Middle East is the ex-president’s idea of a good time.

There’s also the small question of Iraq. Think of the appointment this way: “You voted for this bloody war, Hillary; you can end it.”

Somewhere down the road, people will realize Obama and his core team have completely redefined the political game on every level — not unlike Karl Rove did eight years ago — and they’ll stop questioning his tactics and recognize the brilliance of the underlying strategy they derive from. Where Rove played to people’s emotions, Obama appeals to our intellect, effectively boxing those who disagree with him into a corner and having them put the dunce cap on their heads themselves.

11:45pm: Wow. President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama. Drop the “elect” and it rolls off the tongue. I’m kind of speechless, actually. It’s all over but the big speech; a speech that, after a string of amazing speeches, will be the [...]]]> [Liveblogging throughout the day, because I want to remember as much of this as possible...]

11:45pm: Wow. President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama. Drop the “elect” and it rolls off the tongue. I’m kind of speechless, actually. It’s all over but the big speech; a speech that, after a string of amazing speeches, will be the biggest speech of Obama’s life. And, perhaps, ours. So far…

11:30pm: Graceless idiots in the audience aside, McCain’s concession speech was a welcome return of the principled statesman I imagined I might be able to cast a reluctant vote for back in the Spring. Palin looked crushed, though, while Almost-First Dude looked ambivalent. In a just world, they’ll slink off to Alaska and not be heard from again, unless, of course, she decides to hold an actual press conference.

10:46pm: Switched from MSNBC to FNC to see what they’re saying and they’ve called Virginia for Obama and the mood of the pundits is rather somber as they’re discussing Obama policies as if he’s already won. Which he has, I guess, but I’m still waiting for it to be called officially.

9:52pm: Obama won New Mexico and is handily winning the Latin vote in Florida by double-digits. Remember, way back during the primaries, that meme about Latinos not voting for a black man and Clinton was the only one who could deliver Florida and Ohio? Hope trumps fear.

9:30pm: OHIO!!!!! This just might really happen…

7:30pm: I can’t stand it anymore! I’m turning on the news.

7:00pm: It hit me earlier this afternoon that, because Salomé and I had registered so recently here in New Jersey, we might not appear on the registered voter list and have to vote via provisional ballot, and that’s exactly what happened. It was more than a little anti-climactic and disappointing, but even as I’m typing these words, it’s settling in…

I JUST VOTED FOR BARACK OBAMA
TO BECOME THE NEXT PRESIDENT
OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

That’s the kind of huge my mind just can’t fully grasp at the moment.

PS: In the Senate race, I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Lautenberg and definitely not Zimmer, so instead, Daryl Mikell Brooks of the Poor People’s Campaign got my vote, not because I’d ever heard of him and knew what he stood for, but because the three-name-tribe has to stick together, and how can you not vote for the Poor People’s Campaign?

5:00pm: Last night in Virginia, what one voice can do: “Fired up! Ready to go!”

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjA2nUUsGxw]

“Let’s go change the world.”

(h/t Sullivan)

3:00pm: This is beautiful. If I’m allowed, I want to do the same thing with Isaac.

2:10pm: Been head down in work all day — budgeting for 2009 on the day where everything we think we know and have ever believed about our world could potentially change has been rather surreal — but came up for a breather to feed the kids lunch and catch up on the latest news, where I came across an interesting link from Sullivan, Thank God We Lost?:

…were we, in fact, better off losing in 2004? The downside was four more years of George Bush and Dick Cheney. That’s hardly to be minimized, especially since the upside is still not completely knowable. But for myself, I think I’m convinced. The cause of liberal change is better served by Obama in 2008 than it would have been by Kerry in 2004. Comments?

I endorsed Kerry because I felt I had no choice, given what we had already discovered about Bush and Cheney’s unique mix of incompetent inerrancy. I feel much more confident in the character and ability of the Democrat this time around. But given the damage of the past four years, that’s a minimal requirement. The task ahead is simply gargantuan.

I wasn’t excited by Kerry in the least in 2004 — Kucinich was my man, followed, reluctantly, by Edwards — wasn’t at all surprised that he lost, and said a few times that by nominating him, perhaps Democrats deserved another four years of Bush/Cheney to understand they had to stop hating the player (Bush) and start hating the game (politics as usual) if they wanted to win. It was a harsh lesson, for sure, and one arguably taught to some who didn’t need the education, but if turnout is as high as it seems like it’s going to be, and if Obama wins more than a squeaker, the means might almost justify the ends.

I think huge credit also needs to go to Howard Dean, whose 2004 candidacy I derided all the way up to The Scream — unfarily spotlighted as what derailed him — but whose 50-State Strategy provided a practical foundation for Obama to build upon, and is now poised to radically reshape the power structure in Washington, DC next year, shifting us back to a more manageable, and potentially more effective, center.

(Great visual of the strategy’s results here.)

8:45am: I’m working from home today because the kids are off from school and Salomé had to work, and it’s taking every ounce of self-discipline I have to focus on getting work done and not just turn on MSNBC and curl up on the couch until this election is over.

It’s kind of hard to believe that, for me, THIS started way back in January when I reluctantly opted into the primary season because something about Obama clicked for me and I believed he could actually pull this thing, this historic, often unimaginable thing off. It’s been an emotional roller coaster ever since, and I’ve had to check out a couple of times lest it overwhelm me.

Last night, after hearing Obama’s grandmother had passed away, I watched the “Yes We Can” video a couple of times and, as I did the first 10 times I watched it, choked up a bit at the sheer magnitude of it all.

Yesterday, India and Isaac came home from school with “I Voted” stickers, happily explaining they’d both voted for Obama, and India drew the picture here. On the phone last week, Salomé overheard Isaac — 8-year-old Isaac — explaining to his friend that “Obama is the change we need in the White House”!

This morning, Salomé texted me that there was a line about 75-deep “of the worst looking thugs and hood rats” at her school (in the Hunts Point section of the South Bronx) waiting to vote. We’ll take our turn later this evening, here in New Jersey, when she gets back home from work, voting together for the first time, kids in tow, hoping they can remember the moment clearly years from now.

Like Obama, my grandparents didn’t live long enough to see what’s potentially about to happen, but the thought of my kids growing up in a world where a name like Barack Hussein Obama rolls off the tongue without a second thought; where the face of a black man appearing in their history textbooks alongside 43 white men doesn’t elicit a pause; where two young girls close to their age grow up in the public eye playing in and around the White House and it’s not a cynical photo op…

It’s crazy; beautiful crazy, and I’m cautiously optimistic that the polls are right and that we won’t wake up tomorrow morning to find out we were only dreaming this moment was really happening.

RIP: Madelyn Dunham, October 26, 1922 – November 3, 2008

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEFgHskgOFQ]

“A quiet hero”, indeed.

May your grandson, and America itself, do you proud.

BONUS:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq8Uc5BFogE]

Know hope.

Twice!

Well, kind of…

Seemingly lost [...]]]>

The K Chronicles: Stories From the Campaign Trail

There’s a bit of a tempest in a teapot happening over at Montclair State University thanks to a “controversial” episode of the Keith Knight comic strip, The K Chronicles, that was published last week in the student newspaper, the Montclarion, and included the word “nigger”.

Twice!

Well, kind of…

Seemingly lost on most of those in a tizzy over the strip (reading some of the comments is just one more reason to not take anything for granted before the election results are in and officially certified) is the fact that Knight was simply repeating a story told by a canvasser in Western Pennsylvania, where conventional wisdom has it that people are simply too racist to support Obama, as evidenced partly by Hillary Clinton’s thumping him out there during the primary.

It’s a story that’s been referenced in several places over the past week or so, and Knight’s take on it was simply addressing what has become one of the more fascinating sub-plots of this election as the economy has taken center stage and helped turn John McCain’s ill-conceived selling of his soul campaign into a sputtering hot mess: Racists for Obama.

“I wouldn’t want a mixed marriage for my daughter, but I’m voting for Obama,” the wife of a retired Virginia coal miner, Sharon Fleming, told the Los Angeles Times recently.

One Obama volunteer told Politico after canvassing the working-class white Philadelphia neighborhood of Fishtown recently, “I was blown away by the outright racism, but these folks are … undecided. They would call him a [racial epithet] and mention how they don’t know what to do because of the economy.”

Knight’s strip, The K Chronicles (which I reviewed the 3rd collection of a few years back, and was one of the judges for the 2006 Glyph Awards when it won Best Comic Strip) are typically one-page, semi-autobiographical snippets of life, frequently socio-political and poignant; occasionally more sobering than funny. Knight is Aaron (Boondocks) McGruder’s less self-conscious sibling, but with more range. His humor is effortless and rarely didactic, and his stories frequently overwhelm his simple line art, at times literally taking over a panel or even an entire strip.

The “controversial” strip is anything but to anyone who’s actually been following the election beyond the AP headlines and evening news soundbites, and some of the offended reactions say more about the people claiming offense than the strip or the Montclarion’s editorial judgement.

In an ironic twist, the paper was recently granted its independence from the oversight of the school’s Student Government Association.

The Montclarion, the feisty weekly published on campus since 1928, officially severed ties with the Student Government Association on Sept. 17. The split, which was arranged by university president Susan Cole, means the paper will no longer receive funding from the SGA — and the SGA will no longer have the power to stop the presses from rolling, as it did last year.

[snip]

The “new” Montclarion was born of the controversy that erupted last winter and drew national headlines. The Montclarion, in its role as watchdog over the SGA, sought to obtain the minutes of the closed-door session held by the student government. When the SGA didn’t turn over the minutes, The Montclarion hired its own attorney for a $5,000 retainer.

The SGA maintained that because The Montclarion was part of student government, it had no right to its own attorney. As punishment, the SGA withheld the newspaper’s $2,000 allocation for printing costs and that prevented the newspaper from publishing its first edition of the spring semester.

If only the mainstream media had that kind of backbone and independence!

(h/t Baristanet and PopCultureShock)

ETA: Keith Knight responds to the uproar at the Daily Cross Hatch.

HILARY: C’mon you guys, I’ve been playing this shit since Gygax was in eighth grade.  Why can’t I be the party leader with the magic sword for once?

MCCAIN: Because no one wants [...]]]> This might be one of the funniest — if narrowly targeted — spoofs of the election I’ve seen so far:

HILARY: C’mon you guys, I’ve been playing this shit since Gygax was in eighth grade.  Why can’t I be the party leader with the magic sword for once?

MCCAIN: Because no one wants to see you in a bronze bra.

OBAMA: Oh dude, BURRRRRNNNN.

HILARY: SCREW YOU, Grandpa. I will so kick your ass.

MCCAIN: Yeah?  Bring it!  I didn’t spend 3 years in the Abyss with Githzerai hooking my nads up to a car battery to get beat by some Wellesley girl.

HILARY: WHATEVER, you can’t even lift your arms over your head.

RON PAUL:  I brought my Planescape character!

OBAMA: Dude, we’re playing Forgotten Realms.

RON PAUL: I rift in from Sigil!  I’m a Chaotic Neutral Tiefling Barbarian/Monk/Rogue!

MCCAIN: DUDE, that is not even LEGAL.

RON PAUL:  Ronpaul the Barbarian say: suck it!  Guns and abortions and weed for everyone! WHEEE!

PALIN: Hi folks!  Sorry I’m late!  I brought caribou burgers.

HILARY: Who the HELL is this?

MCCAIN: It’s cool, she’s with me.

HILARY: No!  No, it’s not cool!  Every time you bring one of your rodeo-queen girlfriends in here she ends up playing some succubus infiltrator and killing the whole party!

MCCAIN: Now, that is patently untrue.

BIDEN: He has a point. Cindy turned out to be a vampire.

MCCAIN: DUDE. SHUT UP.

GM: You guys, seriously, if you don’t knock it off with the bickering I’m going to start docking XP.

MCCAIN: You know what?  Fuck it.  I’m suspending the campaign.

GM: You can’t do that!  Only I can suspend the campaign!  I didn’t suspend it for the 1988 Mountain Dew shortage and I’m not going to suspend it now.

KUCINICH: YOU GUYS I AM TOTALLY CASTING A CANTRIP

MCCAIN: Oh my god, Dennis, shut up, you don’t even count.

KUCINICH: YOU GUYS ARE DICKS

I’d love to see this as an SNL skit! There’s more, so click through and give it a read.

(h/t Ben Smith)

“And I got my middle name from somebody who obviously didn’t think I’d ever run for President.”

I just got around to watching Obama’s speech at the Al Smith Dinner the other night and it’s funny as hell, taking shots at McCain, Clinton, Schumer, Bloomberg, Giuliani, Wall Street and, most importantly, himself, showing a [...]]]> [youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5SWQJWm6Tg]

“And I got my middle name from somebody who obviously didn’t think I’d ever run for President.”

I just got around to watching Obama’s speech at the Al Smith Dinner the other night and it’s funny as hell, taking shots at McCain, Clinton, Schumer, Bloomberg, Giuliani, Wall Street and, most importantly, himself, showing a sense of humor that has rarely been on display during the campaign or in the majority of SNL’s political skits.

Funny how he can admit that he “screwed up” by ditching Letterman’s show last month to save the economy talk to Katie Couric and make an appearance at a Bill Clinton event, but when Dave presses him on his and Palin’s “pals around with terrorists” nonsense, he sticks to the same B.S. line about [...]]]> [youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiBqHczYJYo]

Funny how he can admit that he “screwed up” by ditching Letterman’s show last month to save the economy talk to Katie Couric and make an appearance at a Bill Clinton event, but when Dave presses him on his and Palin’s “pals around with terrorists” nonsense, he sticks to the same B.S. line about Ayers and their nefarious connection to ACORN.

Loser.

It’s like a mash-up of so many of my favorite things!

PS: I’ll be back on a regular posting schedule, here and on Spindle, very soon.  Seriously.