Optimiasmobama

This election makes me feel optimistic in spite of my best efforts (and you know how good my best efforts are). This may be the best skill of both Barack Obama and the Obamabots.

Barack Obama is going to have trouble being President. He's inheriting a merciless disaster in the White House and even more financial drama throughout the nation. He's going to be more threatened with assassination than any other president in American history, and some of those threats could come from within. He has a deeply distrustful percentage of the electorate to contend with. He is not speaking the complete truth about all his plans: I believe him on taxes, but foreign policy is definitely going to be worse on all of us than he's giving it credit for, and I sincerely doubt he's gonna get us out of Iraq within that first term. And he's got two kids under the age of twelve.

And he still makes me feel good. Not good because he's avoiding the questions and I don't want to think about the questions, but because he's got it under control, as much under control as it can possibly be. He knows his shit, and the concept of knowing his shit is very important to him, and he manages both to keep it accessible and to be precise. He's thoughtful without being obscure, a politician while genuinely being politic.

I like him. His political presence in the world makes me feel good. And in a climate like this, that seems like what I should be asking for.