Posted by
Desert Blue on Wednesday, November 05, 2008 12:06:23 PM
It hurts both to read and to write political blogs after
such a blow. However, last night was an
anniversary, of sorts; my wife and I had our first date on Election Night,
1992. That was a politically painful
night, too, but America
survived. By the time we’d gotten to the
party, there was little party spirit left. 1996 was Doleful, too.
Looking back, we’re also old enough to remember the Carter
administration. The 2008 election has
been an eerie replay of the 1976 election, hasn’t it? Palm Springs
was once a small town, so my wife and I went to the same church and preschool,
and were even delivered by the same substitute doctor. My wife’s birthday is on Inauguration Day, and
we watched Carter’s inauguration on television in preschool. This gave me my first impression of bias in
the news. Really! I thought that it was unfair that everyone
was happy for Mr. Carter but not sad for Mr. Ford.
Carter’s claim to fame was as a peanut farmer and a
speechmaker. Later on in the Carter
years, my mother tried to explain stagflation (the inflationary recession) with
the oil shortage and the wage-price spiral; I didn’t buy it then, either. Bad monetary, tax, trade, and energy policies
had a little more to do with it. I don’t remember thinking in 1980 that it
might be unfair for people to be happy for Mr. Reagan but not sad for Mr.
Carter; the Iranian hostage crisis probably colored my view.
So now Ahmenijad, hostage taker, is president of Iran
while Obama, speechmaker, has been elected president of the United
States. While this seems like a bad Hollywood sequel, we
have reason for hope, because we know how the movie ends: America
did survive Carter. We survived Clinton,
too, though his policies led to the attacks of November 11, 2001. It will hurt, but America
will survive this Democratic president, with people still falling in love, and getting married, and having anniversaries.