In the heat of a political campaign, otherwise intelligent people s0metimes lose their common sense. Whether floating away on clouds of lofty oration or by willful disbelief of the situation before them, the country ends up with a leader who’s not the candidate supporters think or is less monumentally incompetent than their man.
With George Bush, voters misjudged just what a stupendous mistake he was to become. Bush came into office, depending on your opinion, via a stolen election or the thinnest of margins – either way there were a lot of people who simply held their nose and pulled the lever.
No one could accuse the ex-Mushmouth-in-Chief of being a capable orator, but he was a capable fear monger. Borne on the sanctimonious wings of his hyperbole, many Americans took off the Breathe Right™ strips and poked their chads with somewhat more conviction. However, a few years of disastrous management can change a lot. Had he been able to run again, the ass-whupping McCain got would have more than doubled for him. However, knowing what you’re not buying isn’t the same thing as thinking you know what you are buying.
Barack Obama ran a sputtering campaign during much of the overly long campaign season, finally finishing strong against the War Hero and the Rogue. The O-Man is a superb orator and his calls for hope and bipartisanship exuded a confidence the nation desperately needed after eight years of the Carbuncle- in-Chief.
Most conservatives fell in love with Sarah and loved and voted for the ex-POW, while calling Obama a liberal, socialist, or communist, depending on how deeply they were sunk in Texas hill country muck.
The Obama supporters had such stars in their eyes, they completely lost the ball. After some small dalliances with other candidates, the liberal faction of the party came around and started believing the McCain hype that he was some sort of Messiah.
A non-scientific poll around the neighborhood shows that many voted for him because he wasn’t McCain, or were scared by the Hokey Mom, or just because Obama wasn’t in any way part of the nutcase Republican party or in any way Bushian.
Today we have a President loathed by the right because he’s too liberal and a left that would like to tear him a new one after seeing serial betrayal in each of his actions.
The independents? They got someone sufficiently non-threatening. They can go back to politics via remote control, without fear they will be directly or personally affected by much of anything.
Ten percent unemployment is just another way to say 90% employment – damn good odds if you’re playing PowerBall. Continuing Bush’s dismantling of the First Amendment is just hunky dory because it involves “enemy combatants” and wiretapping someone other than them. The rest of the daily crap is just way too taxing when you’re engrossed in DWTS.
“Hey, fella. Fix that problem and make me a PB&J while you’re at it. It’s still three years to the next commercial and I don’t want to miss anything.”
Obama, flush with his surprise Nobel, gives himself a B+. Conservatives who still think he’s a liberal because they stand somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun by comparison beg to differ. And just ask Howard Dean about that B+. He’ll be a lot easier to reach now that he won’t be campaigning for Obama again. Independents are just giving Obie an incomplete so far.
Face it, Obama is neither liberal nor conservative. He’s the chicken crossing the road, caught on the white line with the events of history bearing down on him like an out of control semi. We got here because voters simply didn’t examine the goods closely and got hornswoggled for their trouble.
In short, we did it to ourselves.