Sunday Political Dish

What I am really tired of is the parsing of every little word, vocal tick, expression, way of walking, etc. I told Big J the other night that I wished we could just take a break until the conventions and then go full on until the election. July and early August are just too hot for so much blathering about.

Take for instance Obama's recent vote on FISA. I am as disappointed as the next liberal by his vote, but I am also realistic. Gail Collins, NYT columnist, had a good point in a recent column when she wrote:

Think back. Why, exactly, did you prefer Obama over Hillary Clinton in the first place? Their policies were almost identical — except his health care proposal was more conservative. You liked Barack because you thought he could get us past the old brain-dead politics, right? He talked — and talked and talked — about how there were going to be no more red states and blue states, how he was going to bring Americans together, including Republicans and Democrats.

Exactly where did everybody think this gathering was going to take place? Left field?

When an extremely intelligent politician tells you over and over and over that he is tired of the take-no-prisoners politics of the last several decades, that he is going to get things done and build a “new consensus,” he is trying to explain that he is all about compromise. Even if he says it in that great Baracky way.

How true this passage is. Did anyone really think that Obama was going to end partisan politics by enticing all conservatives to become liberal? Ha! Compromise is the word of the day -- or perhaps year.

Yes, I would love a more liberal nation overall, but that is just not going to happen. So we should all get over it and work with what we have. What Obama has said in the past is that the one thing we have in common, whether black or white, liberal or conservative, etc., is that we are all Americans. And that's the kind of leadership we need.