First of all, let us now praise the Lord for the miracle wrought very late last Tuesday. What I predicted was needed, happened. A tidal wave of people stormed the polls and even with all the corrupt contrivances of the right wing of the G.O.P., we managed to squeak through, via electoral votes if not much of a numerical advantage.
The numbers were there, just swallowed whole or vaporized or intimidated or otherwise abused. I have no doubt about that. The volume of the true popular vote for Obama is undoubtedly astronomical, enough to send Sarah Palin back to consignment shopping for good.
But now let us turn to the future and offer some advice to the President Elect, who is, after all, a graduate of Columbia and, ahem, Harvard. But I promise you he is intelligent and I feel very optimistic about our future, having given up on it altogether during the last eight miserable years.
It is a strange feeling, optimism. I don't know what to do with it other than continue with my life, my heart skipping a beat each time I realize that democracy has a future and that once again it will not be a curse overseas to admit I am American. Wow, I will travel again without claiming to be a Canadian or Brit.
Did you notice how, toward the end of his acceptance speech, Barack punctuated his sentences most evocatively with "Yes, we can,"- like a musical refrain. What an exquisite, spontaneous orator he is. But why did he mumble those words? I nearly rolled over with ecstasy, but at the same time, could those three words actually have been mumbled?
Perhaps the reason is that once this beacon of everything wonderful about this country ascends with his beautiful family into the White House, he, at least, will fall into a cesspool over his head and have to tread slop with nary a side to hold onto, having chosen the centrist route to appeal to so much of the population.
For this reason, since experts like McGeorge Bundy and Henry Kissinger, both (cf. G. W. Bush) Harvard grads, and even Ramsey Clark have failed us, we must look elsewhere for leadership for the new administration. Novus ordo nascit!!
In this process, we will of course draw on the noble precedents set by previous occupants of the Oval Office. As a part-time, unpaid journalist, with all of the darts to fling at the incompetent press that a stereotypical Progressive like me expects to fling, here is my suggestion for Press Secretary: the lovely Latina cashier in the cafeteria of the building where I work. She is friendly, garrulous, at ease with herself and the world. Everyone loves her. She speaks a perfect English""truly bilingual""and performs her job well.
Marta will need decidedly less of a crash course in reality beyond her domain than did Sarah Palin, for example. She has worked in D.C. and is, moreover, a competent teacher of Spanish, helping me with the garbled small talk I attempt in her native language.
When confronted by the Hard Ball Chris Mouthyews plays and asked, for instance, what to do about the Middle East, she might answer, "They're all crazy over there and things have gotten much worse lately because of Bush."-
If they persist, knuckleheads, throwing knuckleballs, she can refer to me, the other Marta, her assistant (freelance, of course).
"I will read up on that,"- I'll answer. "And consult with the President, who is presently in Tahiti with his family on a two-week vacation, so that he can rest in the aftermath of a cold he caught while delivering his inaugural address in the blisteringly cold""and windy""January weather than can characterize the District."-
"This in itself,"- I will continue, "captures the centrism that will be the cornerstone of the Obama administration."-
And now, on the sly, a al Tina Fay on SNL, I will confide in you that, in the previous paragraph, I have drawn on precedents established by, respectively, George W. Bush, Eisenhower, Jackie Kennedy, and Willliam Henry Harrison, though Obama will survive, used to those subzero and windy Chicago winters.
Shall I continue, more predictably? Jesse Jackson for U.N. ambassador, Hillary for HHS, Al Gore for EPA, Michelle as U.S. attorney who will not be fired illegally.
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