Eight years of George W. Bush, and American liberals threatened to move to Canada or Scandinavia. We actually have friend who moved to Latin America — that’s really taking your position seriously, IMHO.

But here’s the deal folks: Bush won the election in 2004 (and sort of in 2000). Obama and the Democrats won in 2008. Fucking deal with it.

You can’t claim to be for democracy if you don’t accept that sometimes your side loses. That’s part of the bargain. My side lost consistently from about 1994 – 2008. That’s a lot of losing, but you know what — I lived through it. I played video games, watched TV, hung out with friends and family, ate dinner, that sort of thing. I lived through it and so can you.

And let’s say for the sake of argument that rather than pulling a Timothy McVey or Eric Rudolph and attacking “the enemy” in their own red states, that the new militia movement gets organized enough to send a group of fat middle-aged dads armed with hunting rifles and semi-automatic assault rifles down to DC, what do you guys think will happen when you get to town? The night Obama won, I saw something like 200,000 people on the streets of D.C. march down to Lafayette Park to tell Bush not to let the door hit him in the ass on the way out.

Do these people honestly think they can just invade a city where President Obama has something like a 100% approval rating? Are they insane?

Seriously, they should go back to playing Call of Duty: World at War online, and then when they’re done feeling like they actually lived through World War II, they should work on getting their guys elected. Be adults instead of whiny, pathetic little babies who can’t deal with the fact that five million more people supported our guy than supported theirs.

Because these dreams of rebellion just aren’t very realistic. And secession– without the blue state federal gravy train, how would the south pay the bills? Get real.

Everyone was making bad decisions.

Tina and I almost made one of our own — a real estate agent and her friend at the bank kept telling us that every crummy overpriced house we looked at was a great deal. “If you don’t get into the market now, you’ll never get in!” she warned.

We opted not to buy and stay renters. Not bad, considering the quickly depreciating values of the homes we looked at not two years ago. I bring this up not to say that we’re somehow better than the people who did opt to buy, but that we were pressured to get a bad interest-only loan predicated on the notion that someday we would cash out the equity in our house and refinance. Tina and I are educated and, in regards to big expenditures, fairly cautious. Other people aren’t and they paid the price — and now we’re all paying for them. But it wasn’t like they were solely responsible for their mistakes. The financial and real estate industries are just as responsible as they are for offering them risky loans and promoting properties that people obviously couldn’t afford.

Santelli’s error is that everyone who participated in the bubble is at fault — not just the people who joined the “Ownership Society” when they couldn’t really afford to. Blaming the “losers” alone means shifting blame completely from the creators of the shell game.

I’ve always been skeptical that markets regulate themselves — I think it’s pretty clear that without regulation and a referee, markets work the way they were meant to: to get the people who run them stinking rich through any possible means. Greed often overrides common sense, and it certainly doesn’t regulate itself. Greed by its nature is selfish and reckless.

And it seems to me that the gatekeepers of the economy like Santelli still haven’t learned their lesson.

U Street was filled with vendors hawking unofficial Obama souvenirs — everything from posters to calendars to books and videos. It was pretty overwhelming. There was even a store called “Everything Obama” which, I presume, is being honest about its wares.

One cannot underestimate the power of Obama’s inauguration for the African American community, but I worry that the expectations on what he can achieve are too high. Many of the posters I saw for sale depict him as a messiah figure, some even quoting prophecy and scripture describing him as the one that was promised.

I’m a supporter of a pragmatic, center-left politician named “Barack Obama,” but this other Obama, Obama the savior, is a bit disturbing. It reminds me in some what of a mirror image of the evangelical view of Bush as being god’s own President.  I like my Presidents as human beings — capable, but not infallible.  I loathe the idea of American Caesers and the cult of personality that develops around human beings.

When human beings get elevated to messianic god-men, there’s nothing but disappointment ahead for their supporters. I have high hopes for Obama, but there’s only so much one man can do.  I just wish some of my political allies would dial it back a bit and try to think of how crazy some of this sounds.  Obama can be a great President and leader, but he’s not a prophecized prophet or anything.  Setting him up as such doesn’t serve our side very well.

Of course, the radical left is ecstatic about the way his appointments have gone thus far. According to Politico, it’s like all their dreams have come true:

OpenLeft blogger Chris Bowers went so far as to issue this plaintive plea: “Isn’t there ever a point when we can get an actual Democratic administration?”

C’mon Chris, you don’t get more progressive than Robert Gates or General James Jones! Someone needs to pull out that old dog-eared copy of Das Kapital to refresh himself on what real leftism is all about.

All you have to do is read the conservative blogs to realize just how crazy and radical this guy Obama is. These socialist appointments, of course, have worked to distract us from the real challenge ahead — the return of the fairness doctrine.

Not a single Democrat I’ve seen — including comrades Obama, Pelosi and Reid — has even brought this up as being part of their legislative agenda. Which means, of course, that there’s a secret conspiracy to push Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Hugh Hewitt, etc. off the air and replace them with guys like Ed Schultz, Bill Press and Randi Rhodes! I can only image how smoky and sinister those Democratic caucus meetings must be, between the fairness doctrine conspiracy, these liberal appointments, and the cover up of Obama’s true father (none other than one Malcolm Shabazz, aka Malcolm X!) and secret birth place somewhere in Kenya or Indonesia or the communist Ukraine.

The idea of dumping D.C. into Maryland or Virginia is just offensive to Washingtonians — D.C. has its own unique culture and history, and I’m not sure Washingtonians (and I’m referring to the real Washingtonians, those of us who love this city and consider it our home, not the transients who come here for government jobs, appointments, or internships and then run back home to Minnesota or wherever when their job ends) would be too excited about suddenly become Virginians, or helping to expand the tax-base of Prince George’s County, MD. We could live in Virginia and Maryland if we wanted to, but we choose to live in the District instead. Some could say that we also choose not to have congressional representation — that’s a true statement, but it misses the point that the world’s greatest democracy purposefully denies the residents of its capitol city congressional representation. How can we argue for democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, if we don’t believe the residents of D.C. deserve adequate representation in congress?

I think a single congressional vote is a fair compromise. It wouldn’t have the unbalancing impact of adding two more votes to the senate, but would be just one more progressive vote in the House. I’m still in favor of last year’s failed plan of giving us a vote and then balancing it out with a vote for a growing red state like Utah. Our population is bigger than the population of Wyoming — we should get some representation, but full representation seems unrealistic to me.

Here’s what the left doesn’t get — the country, though not “center right” as the Republicans believe, is neither conservative or liberal: it’s centrist. People take and pick their viewpoints from a variety of sources and don’t necessarily view two policy positions as incompatible if one rises from leftist thought and the other rises from conservative thought. There is general disgust with hardline ideological positions, as many Americans just aren’t that ideological.

George W. Bush governed from the hard right. Iraq, Katrina, Social Security privatization, purging the Justice Department of Democrats, Terry Schiavo, etc. were all extremely partisan, hardline conservative positions. And Bush failed because of them — his support collapsed because he governed from an ideological position and not a fact-based position. People who normally didn’t care about such things started to think of him as a right wing nutjob. And that was that. But just because they dislike a rightwing nutjob, doesn’t mean they won’t also dislike a leftwing nutjob. I think most ordinary people think that hardline positions of any stripe are bullshit.

Obama is smart. He knows that the only way he can govern successfully and gain consensus is from the center. Anyone who read either of his books should understand this. That’s why he’s got sensible centrist picks, and not a single avatar of the left among them. This may be disappointing to my fellow progressives, but we need to suck it up and accept that we’ve got a competent team of people at the helm at last. Change may happen, but it will be moderate change. Such moderation may seem radical to Americans in the center after eight years of Bush, but progressives are just going to have to accept what we can get. The Republicans didn’t accept what was realistic, and now they’re out in the wilderness after six years of overreach. If we want to stay in the majority, Democrats are going to have to learn to provide sensible progressive solutions and not try to radically change the country as the Republicans did.

The Senate Democrats in a show of “unity” decided to keep the Republican Senator from Connecticut in their caucus.  Maybe it speaks of Democratic magnamity or goodness or something, but I’d never imagine the Republicans keeping such a shameless turncoat in their own caucus, much less allow them to retain their coveted Homeland Security chairmanship. Lieberman hasn’t been a Democrat since at least the 2000 election when he sold out the Gore team’s efforts to get a recount in Florida. I could list a thousand things the man has done or said that have hurt the progressive cause over the years, but that’s beside the point.

I have no problem with Obama making nice with McCain or Clinton — they were political adversaries, and they were competing for the same office. But when Lieberman was challenged by Ned Lamont in Connecticut, Obama supported Lieberman and campaigned on his behalf — a fact not lost on many in the netroots who loathe Lieberman. He put his name and reputation on the line to back Lieberman, who then turned around and slandered him in the press. Supporting McCain is fine, but he pushed the worst of the smears and does not deserve a pass for it.

You can watch the pathetic makeup session here:

There’s two competing theories at the moment.  First, that it’s true — Obama is taking a page out of the Abraham Lincoln “Team of Rivals” approach and considering nominating his greatest rival in the Democratic party to a significant cabinet post.

Conversely, there’s a school of thought being promoted by Al Giordano and others that this is all just a ruse by the Clinton people to embarrass Obama and prevent the nominations of either John Kerry or Bill Richardson to the post, as the Clinton’s view Kerry and Richardson as traitors for backing Obama.  Al makes his case here.

I’m personally in the “Team of Rivals” camp — I think nominating HRC to the position of Secretary of State would be a huge gesture of party unity, and a sign that Obama is confident enough in himself that he would appoint one of his political adversaries to his cabinet.  I think Hillary Clinton would make a fine Secretary of State, and I would much rather see her in that role than Kerry or Richardson.  It would also give the Clinton’s a vested interested in the success of an Obama administration and would reward her for putting her differences aside and campaigning for him relentlessly during the general election campaign.  A win all around in my book.

But I never hated Hillary Clinton — I just didn’t want her to be President of the United States.  A lot of other Obama supporters are still bitter, which is why they’re pushing this HRC as Machiavelli myth.  If HRC was Machiavelli, she’d be the President-Elect right now.  She’s not.  Which leads me to believe that she probably is a serious contender for Secretary of State.

I’ve been wrong before, though, so who knows if I’m right about this.  Three months from now it could be Chuck Hagel — but right now, I’m hoping this is true.  If it is, it would be a great move and a grand political gesture that helps prove Obama’s argument that he is a concillatory figure.  We’ll see.

Seriously, I am so sick of hearing about her. It reminds me of when I was seventeen years old and played a popular supporting role in the school play. After the play was over, I expected my temporary and unexpected celebrity to continue. It didn’t.

Playing to a political base isn’t enough to win elections. It didn’t work for Bob Dole, it didn’t work for John McCain and it certainly didn’t work for Sarah Palin. Beloved by conservatives, the exit polls following the election showed that Palin was pretty much reviled by just about everyone else. And yet here she is at the Republican Governor’s meeting talking about Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder just like it was still November 3.

If Palin wants another shot, she needs to go back to Alaska, read up on foreign and domestic policy, and come back in four years to show that she’s a radically different candidate. If she doesn’t, then her fifteen minutes are over. There’s no way that Palin as currently defined can win the center.

But hey, at least Camille Paglia still loves her, right?

A year ago, I was a lukewarm Hillary Clinton supporter. I liked Obama, his temperament, his intellect, his ideals and integrity. But I was skeptical he could win. As Iowa approached, I was virtually uncommitted, but after his resounding victory, I went all in for him. Iowa proved to me and a lot of other people that he could do it. Last night’s election was proof that we were right.

I was nervous all night, sick to my stomach with anxiety. When Pennsylvania was called, I felt a sudden flood of hope — McCain and Palin worked hard to turn the state, but Obama won it handily. After that, it was nothing but good news, an electoral map expanded past the Kerry states into traditional red states. Ohio, Florida, Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado, Indiana. It’s still hard to believe.

I cycled between all the cable networks, switched to the Call of Duty: World at War beta, and then back to the election.

And suddenly, perhaps surprisingly, the networks called the election for Obama. The city around me was silent, as if my fellow Washingtonians couldn’t believe what had happened, either. And then scattered cheers, horns honking, fireworks could be heard. The sound grew and grew until around 11pm there was a flood of people heading down 16th St past my apartment — white, black, hispanic, young and old. Celebrating, cheering, dancing, hugging. Complete strangers hugging and shaking hands and high-fiving. Terrorist fist bumps.

The revelers took over U Street, some climbed on to of the bus stops and danced on the overhangs. Further down 16th, thousands filled Lafayette Park at the gates to the White House, cheering and waving signs.

Later, McCain offered his stirring and heroic concession speech. For a moment, I forgot about past three months and remembered the great man I backed in 2000. Here he was, ringing in the arrival of Barack Obama with grace and dignity.

And then Obama’s acceptance speech. In my mind there were two great Presidents of the 20th Century, idealogical mirror images — Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. One a champion of liberalism, the other conservatism, they shared the ability to rally the nation in a time of crisis and bring us together as one people. While Bush was President of the Republican Party, Roosevelt and Reagan were both President to the nation. Obama’s call for civility, for reconciliation, for working together fits the mold of those two men. Who knows if he can be successful, but the chance is there.

This morning, my co-workers and I stood in the hallway, still somewhat dumbfounded that we pulled it off. Everyone tearing up with emotion, sharing a common bond.

As much as this election means to rank and file Democrats, who felt alienated from the government and unrepresented for the better part of eight years, the significance of Obama’s win has greater value to African Americans.

Just 40 years ago, African Americans could not attend the same schools as whites, couldn’t eat in the same restaurants, ride in the same part of the bus, or work the same jobs. Even with civil rights victories, there was a belief among many African Americans that this country was not their’s. That they weren’t really Americans, that they would never have full citizenship.

And yet this morning, Barack Obama will be the next President. The message to black children across the country is clear — you can do anything. America is yours, too.

Immigrants from countries around the world can look at their child, male or female, and say: You could some day be President. America is yours, too.

Today at work one of my friends, a conservative, came up to me and said: “You should thank me.”

For a moment I was confused.

“It was a hard decision,” he said, “but I voted for Obama.”

I immediately shook his hand and thanked him, because I knew how difficult it was for him. The two of us had discussed the election frequently, and I listened to his concerns, trying to offer my side of things without giving him the hard sell. I don’t believe in being an evangelist, of forcing my views on others. All I can do is give them my side, and let them decide if that changes their mind.

He told me the struggle he and his wife had making up their minds about who to vote for, how they were concerned that Obama’s policies might make it so she lost her job. “But at the end of the day, I had to do it for my son,” he said.

His wife is Brazilian. At first I didn’t understand what he meant, but then it hit me. I understood.

It’s a brand new day. For the first time in a long time, I believe anything is truly possible — that the Bush years can be erased, that America can be great again. It may not happen, but I know it can.

Today the world knows that a majority of Americans — the biggest majority since Reagan — have elected Barack Hussein Obama as their next President. We’re not the country they thought we were — the racist, warmongering brutes that the hypocrites in Europe stereotyped us as. They would never think to elect someone from the working class, let alone a lower middle class man of mixed African and European descent. We are the greatest country on earth, and any American can be President. No other country on the planet can claim the same.

Sorry this is so disjointed. I have so much to say, but no way to express it all.