Why I "hope" Obama wins

Facts can be stubborn things, says the old saw.  True as well that reality can bite you in the butt.

Barack Obama, like him or not, has done something no one else has since an actor-turned-Govenor ran for the White House in 1976.  He has ignited a passion in a slumbering part of the electorate.

If Obama wins the Democratic nomination (certainly a strong possibility at this point) the new voters he has brought into this great American proccess are about to find out a few of things.

1 - Gritty policy details in a general election debate are not anything you can make home made music videos of and put on YouTube.

2- "Hope" and "Change" are great slogans.

3- Slogans don't mean a whole lot when one is trying to negotiate with people who are unwilling to do so.

The newbies Obama has brought to the party are more than welcome to stay, now comes the lesson they are about to learn.  A pep rally before a game is always followed by another team showing up that isn't exactly jumping up and down in tune with you.   And sometimes that other team brings you down to Earth.  Fast.

Current world events and the politics around them make people who are invested by just paying attention to them somewhat cynical. This is not to say that reality makes everyone hard-bitten it is just to say that the truth isn't wishful thinking. Sadly it seems, listening to the new voters following Obama, that wishing and hoping are what they believe in.

"Hope for the best, prepare for the worst". Now that's a life lesson.  It's just that the "prepare for the worst" part hasn't been told to them and apparently some of them can't figure that out on their own.

It's as though the goal is to have the rest of the World "love us" and that we can actually achieve that.  For starters that is not, and cannot be, the goal. What's more is that there is no way we could achieve that even if it were.

The United States of America is in a truly tough spot. Here's another old saw that does ring true... "we (the USA) can't win for losing."  No President, no administration can change that. Unless that President has the power to drop us out of the picture. Good luck with that.  We are hated not just for what we do or don't do, but simply because we are rich and powerful.  The only way to get rid of that is to cease to be rich and powerful.  Again, good luck with that.

Like those who opposed the war, voted in Pelosi & company, and now wonder why we are still there and all they get from Negative Nancy is a bunch of meaningless lip service.  It's because it was all she could ever give them.  She knew that then, she know that now.   The debate over the war is not about whether we should have gone in the first place - (we can stipulate that we should not have) - that debate is entirely irrelevant.  You can Monday morning quarterback that all you want but it doesn't change the situation as it stands - and how we handle that -- to protect and return our troops, safeguard the lives of millions of Iraqis who now entrust us to do so, finish the situation with as much dignity as possible and prevent Iraq from inflaming a region-wide war -- those are the only things that matter.  Those and those alone. 

And because of those tricky little facts, we cannot under any circumstance put a timetable for leaving Iraq into place.  That would be an assured disaster. Obama knows this, which is why he hedges his withdrawal intentions.

There is no question Obama can offer "change", whether that "change" is a positive thing is subject to outcome and not desire. This is also not to say Obama wouldn't be an effective President or do great things in office, he might well. 

If Obama is elected to the office his adherents would be advised to go rent the movie "Stripes", watch the opening sequence and listen carefully when Bill Murray's character "John" flops onto the bed after all the bad things start becoming true only to have him say "And then, reality set in."

This is also to alert those new voters to (and here's another) "be careful what you wish for". You want the power to "change", fine. It might be yours. And so will the responsibility that goes with it.

It's that harsh lesson in responsibility that might well make a President Obama even more worthwhile to the future of this great nation. Then the people who have come to the debate because of him will grow up quickly and that will be a good thing for this country's future.