BYRON HARVEY

I haven’t had much to say politically in some time (other than the post the other day on the administration’s unbelievable carping to the United Waste of Time Nations about Arizona’s law).  I think I’ll leave this post as my thoughts on U.S. politics at this point in time:

• When I think about President Obama, I hearken back to Dennis Green’s comments after a football game a few years ago, when speaking of the supposedly-invincible Chicago Bears, who had just barely beaten his hapless Cardinals.  He continually said, “They are who we thought they were.”  Barack Obama is who we thought he was…only perhaps a little worse.  People bought the sizzle, the “idea of Obama”: he campaigned as a uniter, but we knew he was a divider (see “Wright, Jeremiah”); he campaigned as a centrist, but we knew he was a far-leftist (see “Alinsky, Saul” and “Ayers, Bill”); he campaigned as ready for the job, as opposed to Sarah Palin, who was unqualified, but we knew he was bereft of meaningful life experience, at least enough to be president; he campaigned as Everyman, but we knew he was a self-important elitist patrician (see his autobiographies written before he’d accomplished much of anything).  He is pretty much exactly what so many of us thought he was—and it still astonishes me that so many Americans voted for him.  Absolutely astonishing.
• The Republican Party has a golden opportunity this fall, and compared to the Democrats, sure, let ’em win.  But if we are optimistic about what they will do if/when they gain one or both houses of Congress, then we are people with very short memories.  Don’t like Obamacare?  What did the Republicans do about health care for eight years worth of GWB and much control of Congress?  Don’t like bailouts?  What party was in power when they began?  Don’t like judicial activism?  What party gave us John Paul Stevens, David Souter, and Anthony Kennedy?

That’s about all I got right now.   Y’all have heard the rest…