Tomorrow's THE day

At long last, we come to an end (I hope) of this dismal election season. I hope that things can be resolved tomorrow night without the controversy that marked the 2000 election. I have to wonder about the charges of voter fraud that have been made, and how that will play out. I hope that these allegation have been political BS as usual.

When Bill Clinton was elected in 1992, there were fears that the New World Order was about to be made good. There were UN forces massing in Mississippi, unmarked troop transports spotted all over the Southeast, and of course, the infamous Black Helicopters everywhere.

When Bush was elected in 2000 (and more so at the time of his re-election in 2004), the talk was of loss of our basic rights--you know, political speech shut down, the FBI monitoring your library habits, Bush=Hitler, etc.

None of these things happened. And despite this being the "most important election of our lifetime" (aren't they all?), no matter who is elected tomorrow, I don't think the country will look that much different 4 or 8 years from now.

This article talks about how a conservative might respond to an Obama presidency. "The actions of the left over the last eight years, and the behavior of Obama's supporters and the press over the past few months has made me angry," he writes. "It's not Obama himself who fuels my anger - it's the way the media covers for him. It's the fact that if he wins, I'll spend the next four years being accused of racism for disagreeing with his policy proposals."

It will be interesting to see how our MSM relates to Obama (if he is indeed the winner). My guess is that it will be quite a contrast to the last 8 years. Which brings up this, as a temptation, at least:

This is surely small of me, but if Obama wins, I plan on giving him as much of a chance as the Democrats gave George Bush. I will gleefully forward every paranoid anti-Obama rumor that I see, along with YouTube footage of his verbal missteps. I will laugh and email heinous anti-Obama photoshop jobs, and maybe even learn photoshop myself to create some. I'll buy anti-Obama books, and maybe even a "Not My President" t-shirt. I'm sure that the mainstream bookstores won't carry them, but I'll be on the lookout for anti-Obama calendars and stuff like that. I will not wish America harm, and if the country is hurt (economically, militarily, or diplomatically) I will truly mourn. But i will also take some solace that it occurred under Obama's watch, and will find every reason to blame him personally and fan the flames.

Not my cup of tea, necessarily, but surely tempting and attractive in a way. Or maybe these are the new rules of engagement. I sincerely hope not; the last 8 years of Bush hatery has been tedious, predictable and far from edgy.

Jerome Cole,writing about Obama Derangement Syndrome, adds this polite request:

Presidents are just people and have all the faults that go along with being human. They are also dealing with a huge number of nearly intractable problems while under intense scrutiny from all quarters. Shouldn't we be more forgiving of their mistakes? Even if we can't bring ourselves to be less critical, being less shrill would also be quite welcome.

Well. I don't know how tomorrow night will go; I suspect that a definitive call will not come until early Wednesday. I look forward to something else to occupy my blogging for a change. We won't shed our political fur at the end of the day, but it is my hope that we can set aside some of our pointed and shrill differences.


Less shrill would be real nice.