THEY STOOD FOR AN INFINITE DEAL OF NOTHING: Pro Americans GOP crushed
Updated
There was nothing better than to see the Republican Party boiled down to little more than the reptile part of its brain by Barack Obama's message of hope and reason. The electoral map shows a moth-eaten cloth of cracker states and midwestern dead-end Christians in the red, the GOP reduced to a virtual hard core regional party of primarily the deep south, its carnival of bad ideas and imagined cultural superiorities firmly given the bum's rush by countrymen worried about the economy, the future and America's place in the world.
DD and a good friend tuned in to Fox News early to check on the collapse among the cheerleaders for the mentally ill. Karl Rove had procured a special gift of cookies with an image of FoX News as icing. They were garish and screwy, obviously embarrassing to anchor Brit Hume who remarked that they'd go to the break and eat them. From time to time we checked back. At one point, the go-to guest was Charles Krauthammer who carried on about how Americans still didn't know Barack Obama. During one interval, William Kristol was arguing the "point" that election results showed Sarah Palin ... mattered to folks who voted for John McCain and who said that Sarah Palin mattered to them.
Quick, the sedatives!
Anyway, you know the way you think you must look to others when you've just suffered a wet fart in the underpants? That's what the Fox News people looked like. Only they couldn't gracefully excuse themselves to clean things up.
Finally, Fox included a feed from a flash mob of young people who were showing up in front of the White House. Dancing, they shouted "Obama!" over and over. As an action akin to a pelting of the scorned with eggs, one might presume it appropriately got under the skin of the the most disliked president in modern history -- the GreatDecider Hider.
In Pennsylvania, as predicted, Obama's campaign significantly whittled away GOP margins in the traditionally Republican interior.
"Obama's campaign also succeeded in keeping McCain's winning margin in key GOP strongholds to a minimum," wrote the Morning Call newspaper today. "In Lancaster, which handed Bush his biggest edge of any county in Pennsylvania in the previous two elections -- by 61,000 votes in 2000 and 71,000 in 2004 -- McCain led by about 26,000 votes.
"McCain won in much of central and western Pennsylvania but those counties were not enough to counter Obama's landslide in many eastern Pennsylvania counties."
In redneck and white Schuylkill County, "voters favored John McCain by a slight margin Tuesday ..." wrote the Pottsville Republican.
McCain underperformed in this Republican base. "In Schuylkill County, with 88 percent of precincts reporting, McCain led Obama 51.5 percent to 46.8 percent," added the newspaper.
In the Lehigh Valley, Obama beat McCain by a margin of 2-1. The Morning Call should have made an editorial choice. Its readers certainly did.
One can think of many good things Barack Obama can immediately do. Motion that he will close Guantanamo, end torture as an American instrument in the "war on terror," reaffirm that the US government believes in a rule of law, not men, and reiterate that he intends to keep his word and get the country out of Iraq.
But one of the first, DD hopes, will be to phone George W. Bush and tell him something like this: "Just drive straight until I'm handed the wheel or there will be trouble. No more bad garbage from you, now."
The GOP reptile does not go quietly or without inflicting wounds. Voters here banned gay marriage with Proposition 8. From the start, Prop 8 was an initiative of and for bigots and the intolerant and, one is ashamed to admit, the benighted Catholic church. It was widely condemned and illustrates there is still much work to do in removing a special stain of ugliness from this country. On the day when the country made history and elected its first black president, it is a stinging paradox that gay people would be stripped of the right to marry.
And it shows the cultural war is not over. Count on the fanatical religious right to make more noise and trouble on how people they don't care for are inferior in the eyes of their lord.
Some things, however, will never change
"There is an evil that is pervading this country." Oh, Tetanus! And this, too.
And for more amazement, here.
Updated
There was nothing better than to see the Republican Party boiled down to little more than the reptile part of its brain by Barack Obama's message of hope and reason. The electoral map shows a moth-eaten cloth of cracker states and midwestern dead-end Christians in the red, the GOP reduced to a virtual hard core regional party of primarily the deep south, its carnival of bad ideas and imagined cultural superiorities firmly given the bum's rush by countrymen worried about the economy, the future and America's place in the world.
DD and a good friend tuned in to Fox News early to check on the collapse among the cheerleaders for the mentally ill. Karl Rove had procured a special gift of cookies with an image of FoX News as icing. They were garish and screwy, obviously embarrassing to anchor Brit Hume who remarked that they'd go to the break and eat them. From time to time we checked back. At one point, the go-to guest was Charles Krauthammer who carried on about how Americans still didn't know Barack Obama. During one interval, William Kristol was arguing the "point" that election results showed Sarah Palin ... mattered to folks who voted for John McCain and who said that Sarah Palin mattered to them.
Quick, the sedatives!
Anyway, you know the way you think you must look to others when you've just suffered a wet fart in the underpants? That's what the Fox News people looked like. Only they couldn't gracefully excuse themselves to clean things up.
Finally, Fox included a feed from a flash mob of young people who were showing up in front of the White House. Dancing, they shouted "Obama!" over and over. As an action akin to a pelting of the scorned with eggs, one might presume it appropriately got under the skin of the the most disliked president in modern history -- the Great
In Pennsylvania, as predicted, Obama's campaign significantly whittled away GOP margins in the traditionally Republican interior.
"Obama's campaign also succeeded in keeping McCain's winning margin in key GOP strongholds to a minimum," wrote the Morning Call newspaper today. "In Lancaster, which handed Bush his biggest edge of any county in Pennsylvania in the previous two elections -- by 61,000 votes in 2000 and 71,000 in 2004 -- McCain led by about 26,000 votes.
"McCain won in much of central and western Pennsylvania but those counties were not enough to counter Obama's landslide in many eastern Pennsylvania counties."
In redneck and white Schuylkill County, "voters favored John McCain by a slight margin Tuesday ..." wrote the Pottsville Republican.
McCain underperformed in this Republican base. "In Schuylkill County, with 88 percent of precincts reporting, McCain led Obama 51.5 percent to 46.8 percent," added the newspaper.
In the Lehigh Valley, Obama beat McCain by a margin of 2-1. The Morning Call should have made an editorial choice. Its readers certainly did.
One can think of many good things Barack Obama can immediately do. Motion that he will close Guantanamo, end torture as an American instrument in the "war on terror," reaffirm that the US government believes in a rule of law, not men, and reiterate that he intends to keep his word and get the country out of Iraq.
But one of the first, DD hopes, will be to phone George W. Bush and tell him something like this: "Just drive straight until I'm handed the wheel or there will be trouble. No more bad garbage from you, now."
The GOP reptile does not go quietly or without inflicting wounds. Voters here banned gay marriage with Proposition 8. From the start, Prop 8 was an initiative of and for bigots and the intolerant and, one is ashamed to admit, the benighted Catholic church. It was widely condemned and illustrates there is still much work to do in removing a special stain of ugliness from this country. On the day when the country made history and elected its first black president, it is a stinging paradox that gay people would be stripped of the right to marry.
And it shows the cultural war is not over. Count on the fanatical religious right to make more noise and trouble on how people they don't care for are inferior in the eyes of their lord.
Some things, however, will never change
"There is an evil that is pervading this country." Oh, Tetanus! And this, too.
And for more amazement, here.
posted by George Smith at 7:24 AM
1 Comments:
I had to love Michael Moore's email this morning.
Below:
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008
Friends,
Who among us is not at a loss for words? Tears pour out. Tears of joy. Tears of relief. A stunning, whopping landslide of hope in a time of deep despair.
In a nation that was founded on genocide and then built on the backs of slaves, it was an unexpected moment, shocking in its simplicity: Barack Obama, a good man, a black man, said he would bring change to Washington, and the majority of the country liked that idea. The racists were present throughout the campaign and in the voting booth. But they are no longer the majority, and we will see their flame of hate fizzle out in our lifetime.
There was another important "first" last night. Never before in our history has an avowed anti-war candidate been elected president during a time of war. I hope President-elect Obama remembers that as he considers expanding the war in Afghanistan. The faith we now have will be lost if he forgets the main issue on which he beat his fellow Dems in the primaries and then a great war hero in the general election: The people of America are tired of war. Sick and tired. And their voice was loud and clear yesterday.
It's been an inexcusable 44 years since a Democrat running for president has received even just 51% of the vote. That's because most Americans haven't really liked the Democrats. They see them as rarely having the guts to get the job done or stand up for the working people they say they support. Well, here's their chance. It has been handed to them, via the voting public, in the form of a man who is not a party hack, not a set-for-life Beltway bureaucrat. Will he now become one of them, or will he force them to be more like him? We pray for the latter.
But today we celebrate this triumph of decency over personal attack, of peace over war, of intelligence over a belief that Adam and Eve rode around on dinosaurs just 6,000 years ago. What will it be like to have a smart president? Science, banished for eight years, will return. Imagine supporting our country's greatest minds as they seek to cure illness, discover new forms of energy, and work to save the planet. I know, pinch me.
We may, just possibly, also see a time of refreshing openness, enlightenment and creativity. The arts and the artists will not be seen as the enemy. Perhaps art will be explored in order to discover the greater truths. When FDR was ushered in with his landslide in 1932, what followed was Frank Capra and Preston Sturgis, Woody Guthrie and John Steinbeck, Dorothea Lange and Orson Welles. All week long I have been inundated with media asking me, "gee, Mike, what will you do now that Bush is gone?" Are they kidding? What will it be like to work and create in an environment that nurtures and supports film and the arts, science and invention, and the freedom to be whatever you want to be? Watch a thousand flowers bloom! We've entered a new era, and if I could sum up our collective first thought of this new era, it is this: Anything Is Possible.
An African American has been elected President of the United States! Anything is possible! We can wrestle our economy out of the hands of the reckless rich and return it to the people. Anything is possible! Every citizen can be guaranteed health care. Anything is possible! We can stop melting the polar ice caps. Anything is possible! Those who have committed war crimes will be brought to justice. Anything is possible.
We really don't have much time. There is big work to do. But this is the week for all of us to revel in this great moment. Be humble about it. Do not treat the Republicans in your life the way they have treated you the past eight years. Show them the grace and goodness that Barack Obama exuded throughout the campaign. Though called every name in the book, he refused to lower himself to the gutter and sling the mud back. Can we follow his example? I know, it will be hard.
I want to thank everyone who gave of their time and resources to make this victory happen. It's been a long road, and huge damage has been done to this great country, not to mention to many of you who have lost your jobs, gone bankrupt from medical bills, or suffered through a loved one being shipped off to Iraq. We will now work to repair this damage, and it won't be easy.
But what a way to start! Barack Hussein Obama, the 44th President of the United States. Wow. Seriously, wow.
Yours,
Michael Moore
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