Obamania, For Real
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He's not talking to the rest of the world, he's talking to America
Yup. That's the key to the speech.
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I just watched a clip of Beyonce singing 'At Last' for the Obamas' first dance at the inaugural ball. Sweet, and resonant on a few levels.
Certainly sweet and resonant, but what an odd mix of Telethon, Disney-Spectacle-on-Ice and historic occasion that whole televised thing was?
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The real holdouts are down to 20% of the population.
Sixty million people is a fairly large chorus
I felt that he was honouring the servicepeople rather than the war. No?
true, but as time passes there seems to be an increasing national amnesia on much of what happened in SEA. It was not alright.
But saying 'we actually have to act decently rather than just pretending we can do whatever we want' is leaps and bounds ahead of the last guy, surely?
Absolutely, and at least someone at least understands the periphery of the problem. But I still don't think America has come to terms with, or been able to ask, the post 9/11 question 'why?' yet, and doesn't look likely to in the near future.
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<i>Bearing in mind that Obama has promised to practise a new kind of politics and to transcend the divisions in American society, I think Warren was a good choice. Perhaps changing the tone the conversation may help to break down the polarisation and inertia that comes with the us and them mentality.</i>
Well, that goes both ways WH. It's all very nice for Warren to say he "regrets" the zoological comparisons; oh, and equating people like me to perverts who rape children and commit incest. (Serious points off for admitting he's a big Melissa Etheridge fan, though.) Oh, and he's at least taken the gross homophobic bullshit off his website.
But do you really think he'd publicly preached that Jews bear eternal and collective guilt for the death of Christ, or that black skin is the visible mark of the "Curse of Cain", he'd have been any where near that podium?
After all, don't we need to bring racists and religious bigots into the tent too?
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Should Presidential libraries include archived versions of their administration's webpages or some version of them? Or do they do that already?
I was reading a wired story about the difficulty of the Obama administration continuing the success that the Obama Campaign and Obama Transitition has had online (The Wired Presidency: Can Obama Really Reboot the White House?).
It listed one of the reasons that it's difficult to do once you're in the white house is that every version of a web page needs to be archived, and if you change something, you need to archive it again.
So yes, they do archive it somewhere under the Presidential Records Act (not surprisingly, a post-Nixon piece of legislation).
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Has Obama thrown the gays under the bus? Only if he doesn't deliver on policy. If he does, then the fat guy who talks with his eyes shut won't matter.
In much the same sense that it never mattered that a virulent bigot like Jerry Falwell had way too much access to too many politicians on both sides of the aisle. Practically, it might not mean a damn thing but symbols do count.
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Oh, and a comment that has nothing to do with the invocation.
John Williams - you're a thieving hack whose banality is exceeded only by your hubris. Why didn't Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma just play Aaron Copland's setting of 'Simple Gifts' and cut out the middle man?
And as a nice little literary note, here is the text of the poem Robert Fost wrote (but didn't deliver) for JFK's inauguration.
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Invocation by the Rev Rick Warren
That still rankles. I'm all for outreach and "inclusion", but they couldn't have found an evangelical preacher who isn't quite such a douchebag, and prone to lying about it?I was watching TVOne's coverage, and lo! up pops Paul 'secret National Party mole' Henry. I could have sworn black and blue - nothing worse that having *him* do inanne commentary.
Then by some good stroke of luck, some kind soul mercifully spared us the sight of that douchebag pastor doing some smug prayer of sorts by having Paul Henry continue to ask questions. I guess Mr Henry does have his uses from time to time... but I'm more impressed by the kind soul in the programming studio that spared us all the sight of that vile man, Rick Warren.
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After today's speech, I am hopeful and anxious about Obama but thank f*@k, not cynical, now that Bush has left the office. To me it is America's last chance and that is what makes me anxious. I had better stop as I am starting to sound cynical.
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I guess Mr Henry does have his uses from time to time...
Sunrise had a very informal tone for the broadcast, and talked pretty much entirely over Warren. They were joking around about something and obviously looked over at the monitor and were like "woah! still going"
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they do archive it somewhere under the Presidential Records Act (not surprisingly, a post-Nixon piece of legislation)
Except you'll recall that Cheney, Rove et al managed to get around that by hosting their emails in a non-gov GOP domain - and then "losing" backups when challenged by Fitzgerald during his investigation. Thank goodness those evil little bastards are gone. Chimney's too good for em.
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true, but as time passes there seems to be an increasing national amnesia on much of what happened in SEA. It was not alright.
Though no nation seems to bear a grudge quite like the US - in the early 90s under Clinton they were the last to "normalise" relations with Vietnam. The real test will be whether Obama walks the walk in dealing with Iran.
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We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.
More robust than I would have expected.
To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West
Plenty of people in the West need to stop doing that as well.
To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history
That would be the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Iran, Syria, Burma, North Korea. Hamas as well.
Good luck to the guy. President. What a hell of a job. Certainly quite a day with the first African American sworn in as President.
I wonder what all the crazies are going to do with themselves now that chimpybushhitler is gone? The troofers and all those nutters. Back to disrupting trade talks like Seattle in 1999 I guess.
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WH,
It seems to me that Obama is trying to resolve a number of conflicts in American society, one of those being the conflict between US progressives and moderate US Christians. I'd like to think that building understanding is intrinsically worthwhile, putting to one side the political advantages of broadening Democratic support in what remains a relatively religious society.
I can see why Obama chose Warren, and I can see why people find Warren offensive.
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chimpybushhitler
Nice that you've matured beyond "Obambi", James.
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I always thought it was "chimpybushitler" for maximum effect..
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Nah that seems really childish on a day like this.
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The troofers and all those nutters. Back to disrupting trade talks like Seattle in 1999 I guess.
"I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system," President Bush.
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The troofers and all those nutters. Back to disrupting trade talks like Seattle in 1999 I guess.
"I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system," President Bush
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John Williams - you're a thieving hack whose banality is exceeded only by your hubris. Why didn't Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma just play Aaron Copland's setting of 'Simple Gifts' and cut out the middle man?
There is no human event that a John Williams soundtrack won't manage to cheapen. As it turns out.
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Big Party, Small Change: Baby, We Were Born to Run...the Empire
I understand there's a big party going on in Washington this week, where hundreds of thousands of people are gathering to celebrate Bob Gates' retention as Pentagon chief. I mean, that is what this shindig is all about, isn't it? Hope and.... continuity?
We've got Bush's man still driving the war machine, we've got Bush's generals still waging the "War on Terror" all over the world. We've got a president who is eager to spend his "political capital" on slashing "entitlements," because everyone must sacrifice, everybody's "going to have to have some skin in this game" -- everyone, that is, except for the president's Wall Street backers, who are about to receive yet another tranche of billions of taxpayer dollars in what they are now calling openly -- and rightly -- "opportunity funding." We've got a president honoring homophobic right-wing preachers who urge their followers to imitate the mindless zeal of Nazis and Bolsheviks in doing "whatever it takes" to establish Christianist dominion. We've got a president whose education chief believes in turning over the teaching of America's children to corporations -- and the military. We've even got a president who follows Dick Cheney's "good advice" on interrogating Terror War captives.
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Whoa... what a crappy article. Cherry-picking and distorting, in the name of a parade that must be rained on at all costs!
I'd start by saying that characterising Gates as "Bush's man" is one hell of a stretch - he's the man Bush had to accept after his man was kicked out of town. Also, the last sentence in your quotation kind of ignores pretty much everything that Obama has said today as well as the fact that Guantanamo is getting closed tomorrow. But hey, don't mind me, anything that rocks your anti-imperialist socks is a-okay.
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Hey, I can understand the hatred of John Williams - but I actually liked the version of "A Gift To Be Simple"...waua! Shaker hymns!
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oh yeah, i forgot.
it's all good!"Cherry-picking and distorting"
there's a crime worthy of some punishment.
raining on parades.
even worse crime.
hang 'em all. -
Lx,
Has Obama thrown the gays under the bus? Only if he doesn't deliver on policy. If he does, then the fat guy who talks with his eyes shut won't matter.
In much the same sense that it never mattered that a virulent bigot like Jerry Falwell had way too much access to too many politicians on both sides of the aisle. Practically, it might not mean a damn thing but symbols do count.
Yep. But it's done now so we'll just have to see how it plays out. Best ever blog post title on the swell of reaction to Warren's selection here.
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