While I was watching the coverage and feverishly trying to keep pace with friends and their status updates, some of the comments really caught my eye, for good and bad reasons. Some of these were (and it's up to you to put value judgments on them...also, names are withheld because I'm at least a little discrete):
"...thinks it is interesting that in 05 Democrats were aghast that GW spent 40 mil on his innaugeration in a time of war. Obama is on track for 150 mil. hmmm."
"...is not unlike Lee Greenwood in the fact that today, she is proud to be an American."
"...is FEELING VERY PATRIOTIC, AND HOPING FOR THE BEST!"
"...is mushy about America."
"...is just happy to be alive today to see this."
"...didn't realize there was going to be a new president. Wasn't George elected King for life?"
"...still can't believe "we" elected a foreign-born Muslim!"
"...wonders if the country will wake up in three months with a hangover and a case of "coyote ugly"
Half of the comments are generically patriotic, the other half are partisan claptrap either anti-liberal or anti-conservative, or specifically anti-Obama vs. anti-Bush. I won't pretend that this is a representative sampling of the public at large. It's just a random sampling of people I know somehow in some way. And it's all either blind hope or senseless venom. Personally, I come down on the side of blind hope, and yet, I take no great comfort in it.
I think, the only thing I'm taking away from this random and scientifically insusbstantial sampling of comments by my facebook friends is that my faith in the ability of Americans to rally together as Americans is dying or dead. Conservatives will be conservatives to the bitter end, as liberals will be liberals, and partisan pants-pissing will forever distract us from governing the nation and ourselves.
Sweet Jesus, prove me wrong. I'm not asking Obama, or Biden, or Bush or Cheney or McCain. I'm asking America, if America is listening.
Posts
