That last one was very well done. Brava.

Yes, it's a touch grating. But isn't it just possible, Julie Ponzi, that there are people out there, thousands, millions, who find themselves moved today by a renewed sense of possibility, by a leader who, for the first time in almost a decade, can allow Americans to feel proud of being an American?

I'm truly sorry that today of all days you find yourself cold, unable to see that today means just a little bit more than yesterday.

I just checked my mailbox - no check for my monthly mortgage payment and no check for gas for my car. Anyone know when The One will be issuing those checks?

So the hateful and deranged become servile but remain deranged. The hatred of the powerful is revealed to mask a desperate urge to worship the powerful. George Orwell would have understood.

The idea that Obama is the One like cowgirl said was grating on me all day, but my 8 year old said it best. We were on our way home from school and got stuck in traffic. Out of the blue she said "the kids at school said that Obama was going to solve every problem in America, so why do we still have traffic jams." I couldn't help from laughing...

If any American is today moved for the first time in a decade to be proud of being American, I feel desperately, pitifully sorry for that American and his ignorance.

Bush's policies will now become a rose by any other name. As Obama stays the course of wars in the middle east, bloated government, no economic growth, those with the means to prosper(celebs and the wealthy) will continue to look at the commoners with an increased spitefulness towards their precieced lack of grand vision. Finally, someone else brings up Orwell. The inner party will love big brother no matter what he does and the proles will eak out an existence in much the same way they have throughout the ages. In forty years their won't be many alive who can remember what it was like once before global tyranny. The next four years will shape what the world is going to be like for the next century. If we gradually give in to world government/police state and allow total cradle to grave government control then its all going to be lost and the spirit of 1776 will be cast into a memory hole. I don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to think this, how many western leaders have said their is now the very real possibility for a New World Order in the past six months. The New World Order is the old world order, in other words: welcome to end of the road to serfdom. We have but a few gradual turns left and we will have arrived. By the way, the road to serfdom was nearly all LEFT TURNS like accepting liberal ends as long as it was with conservative means.

Well, we'll see if you're still proud to be an American, Julie, after Obama utterly destroys the USA with all of his communism, corruption, and consorting with the terrorists, as "your" Sarah and that ilk had warned us so...um....reasonably. Of course, those (McCain or other right-wing candidate voters) who are now buying up guns like they're going out of style and earnestly preparing for the imminent Rapture (and, quite possibly, blogging about all of it) are just so mentally sound, right?

And if anyone likes to refer to Obama as "The One" it's the Right; actually, the phenomenon seems to exist almost strictly on the Right. But their version of it is either their fantastical notion that Obama sees himself as such, that a significant portion of those who voted for him see him this way, or that he IS actually The One, that meaning something akin to the Anti-Christ. Of course, all of that is not in the least bit "unhinged," is it?

It's funny to see you refer to these Hollywood goofs (and I care about their political views about as much as I do those Hollywood right-wing bloggers you plugged here a short while back) as "feudal serfs" because they (apparently) used the words "pledge" and "serve". The outgoing administration (I offer a fresh handkerchief to you) was widely known as being quite insistent on absolute loyalty, and surely that involved something like pledges to serve - and don't try to tell me it was an insistence on loyalty to the country, because it was not. One had to be loyal to Bush, Cheney and the GOP.

Diagnosis: Julie, you might be showing early symptoms of ODS - Obama Derangement Syndrome!

Lastly, did you still find Cheney a "sexy" "hottie" as he did his best to portray something between an ageing Mafia don and Dr. Strangelove? He really seemed to be embracing the role.

Well put Julie, as usual I agree for what it is worth, but it strikes me that the general idea at work here is could as easily apply to the entire idea of making resolutions in the New Year. What happens to resolve in October, November, and December? It certainly ebbs and folks figure the vice meter will reset come January 1rst, starting on January 1rst I will X, Y, Z...but until then, well....I mean New Years as an artificial divide of time has as little and probably less rational justification for impacting behavior on a mass scale as the inauguration of Obama. I mean I would say this is a second/delayed New Years resolution period, and irrational or not I believe in the power of folks commiting to something, a critical mass of people turning over new leaves even if nothing gold can stay...well then iron sharpens iron, and we simply need more folks to hold each to account. The sillyness of a pledge and resolution making can never escape me fully, but I doubt I am better off for it. Best to boast and be held to it, and let others boast so that they may be held to it. Sad as it is in a way my blogging and that of many others unless I miss my mark is simply boasting, and I rarely miss my mark. So while I love the faust, the important thing is to step off the splinter finding and build a boat with our own planks, maybe the best thing for actually finding the strength to do this is individual willpower and the indomitable inner strength of a steeled purpose, but even this steel can be tempered and reforged by a New Years, or its functional equivalent. Irrational as it may seem, we can't have enough new years, albeit it would be strange to see Obama re-interpret the State of the Union with something like a renewal of the oath of office.

I suppose the trully strong never bother much with new years, consider things like renewal of marriage vows a foolishness. I am not catholic, but how often does one need to take communion? Do this often in remembrance of me, least ye forget? Some Baptist churches only have take the sacrements one every two months, and from a more secular angle it is a sure bet that sales of self-help books have seen a good bounce. Blessed are those with good habits who never waver, and stay steady even at a turtoise pace...but for us poor hares who make habits of rededication to the race itself...we will certainly pass you at one time or another, only to fall back lost or distracted.

But I digress already?

Craig-

I like the phonetic possibilities of ODS!

As for lingering mental illness -- I had an interesting experience with Classical (Pavlovian) Conditioning this morning, when I drove my kid to school on my way to work, and the reporter on the radio uttered the word "President...." and my gut clenched as it has for 8 years whenever that word is followed by "Bush," and then THAT word was followed by bad news. War, recession, torture, wire-tapping, buffoonery.... you name it. For eight years, the word "President" has been a conditioned stimulus for gut-clenching.

And now, the counter-conditioning may begin!

John-

I
DO feel a sense of renewal and a duty to re-familiarize myself with the person that I was before I became ashamed of a country that elected Bush twice. To be honest, I was also ashamed at my own party for failing to defeat Bush, when it seemed so apparent that he was working against the best interests of EVERYONE except for the very wealthy.

But, now it is time to re-acquaint myself with the reality (and not just the empty words) of government by the people, for the people, and of the people.

It feels a bit naive and foreign, but it sure feels better than depression, shame and anger!

It might be just me, but didn't Dick Cheney look just like the elder Jeffry Lebowski in "The Big Lebowski" while he was being carted around in his wheelchair with that blanket over his lap?

Scanlon: Have you been asleep the last three years or so. The Right has nothing to do with Raising the The One to levels above common man. It has been the very liberal, left MSM. If I am not mistaken it was Chris Matthews of the very liberal, left MSM who proudly proclaimed that The One sent a chill up his leg. No human has ever sent a chill up my leg. However both Clinton and Obama have sent chills up my spine - much like the Alfred Hitchcock Movie "Pyscho". I have never looked at Obama as The One. I just love making fun of the left who truly believe that The One is going to pay their mortgage and put gas in their car.

Fung . . . you know what's interesting about what you say? Now that my party is defeated, and even though I'm not a fan of the man who won the hearts of so many of my fellow citizens, I am not at all ashamed of my country or of my fellow citizens because they thought different or were not persuaded by the arguments my side offered. I am deeply disappointed in my party and irritated with certain segments of it for their inability to make the argument. But I am not ashamed. And I guess my life will go on pretty much the same way that it was going before the election--though I guess, now, I will try to work harder. Just an interesting contrast in perspective. There are deranged people on all sides of the political spectrum . . . but it is a special sort of derangement that seems to be particular to your side of it that revels in shame for our country whenever you don't get your way. You would be a much happier man if you tried harder to understand your opponents the way they understand themselves instead of through the goggles you prefer.

And Craig Scanlon . . . Cheney will always be a hottie. You bet.