An adult Obamaniac's gloating rant

Oops. I'm a week behind with my Blumner bashing.

St. Petersburg editorial columnist Robyn "Blumñata" Blumner's column last week constituted the rant of a Obamaniac, which squeezed a good bit of irony out of the title: "The adults are back in charge."

Even the ramp-up is over the top:

It started as a revolution. Three-million people didn't take to the streets with placards or pitchforks; they took to the Internet with credit cards and pocket change.

Then, democracy won.

Blumner must be referring to Obama's fantastically successful online fund-raising. Fund-raising so effective that it caused Obama to renege on his early pre-campaign promise to seek public financing for his campaign. The adult thing to do, I suppose, is break a commitment if doing so will help one win election. If by "democracy won" Blumner refers to the type of democracy most feared by the framers of the Constitution--government directed by popular whim--then perhaps Blumner is on target. Obama's amazing fund-raising effort combined with a big boost from a mainstream press apparently cut loose from the tradition of objectivity proved a winner with voters and put a notably inexperienced politician in our nation's highest office.

I am brimming with goodwill toward my countrymen who pivoted on this electoral dime and moved us in a new direction. The United States of America has elected a president who is a constitutional scholar, a man of supreme eloquence and sound judgment who also happens to be an African-American.

One might initially take Blumner's goodwill as spread broadly to all her countrymen. But really she's just talking about people who voted Democrat, if her words mean anything. Her goodwill is, in her words, for those "who ... moved us in a new direction," that is, voted for Obama. The rest of us may still receive her ill will vibes.

Now it is time for adults to begin the great cleanup. And on Tuesday, America voted for a public servant with the intelligence, capacity and the will to do the heavy lifting.

One of the big cleanups, for Blumner, probably involves kicking the coalition supports out from under the Iraqi government. A big step forward if that nation sinks again into sectarian strife or allies with Iran or China?

The other big cleanup involves the U.S. economy. Past analysis of Blumner's columns convinces me that she is ignorant of economics. So perhaps she believes what she writes. Obama's policies would worsen the economy, as even he has recognized when he suggested he might delay increasing taxes on the rich. Democrat Charlie Rangel this week (after Blumner submitted her column) supported a tax plan that would lower the tax on capital gains. That represents surprisingly good sense from a modern Democrat, and most likely Blumner won't understand the sense of it. And if Obama signs on with Rangel she will have to reconsider Obama's willingness to engage in heavy lifting. The adult thing, in all probability, is to try to balance the budget by hampering the economy with higher taxes in spite of the present economic difficulties.

There was a time when I thought my countrymen would never see the true venality of Karl Rovian conservative rule. I thought these pols and their operatives, many of whom made their way into John McCain's campaign, had a winning formula for success, by dividing us on diversionary cultural issues and sliming opponents until something stuck.

But it turns out that irresponsible governance does eventually get its comeuppance. The consequences of the Bush administration's indefatigable efforts to enrich its friends and dismantle protective regulation has finally come crashing down on the rest of us so very hard that it could no longer escape notice.

In spite of a pretty good story in her own newspaper regarding the causes of the economic crisis, Blumner probably does not at all feel that it was irresponsible for the government to encourage the housing bubble that led to the current credit crisis. Adults, I suppose, ignore their own failings in favor of pointing the finger of blame outward.

Lucky for us that waiting in the wings was a man of remarkable qualities. Barack Obama is a historic figure not just because he is the first African-American to win the White House. He is a leader like Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who has come along just when his nation needed him.

Doubtless Blumner is aware that Churchill was a conservative who opposed Neville Chamberlain's diplomatic dealings (appeasement) with Nazi Germany. Most likely she is not aware that FDR's economic policies probably prolonged the Great Depression, which was ultimately relieved by what might be called "an unnecessary war." The United States could have negotiated deals with both Germany and Japan. Roosevelt's diplomacy was on the cowboy side, informally aiding Germany's enemies in plain view while angering Japan with an embargo of badly needed trade goods. In the language of the modern adult leftist, Roosevelt forced Japan to war with the United States. But that assumes an awareness of history.

Unlike the cynical line of George Bush who claimed to be a "uniter," Obama's message of unity was a defining theme of his campaign.

Willful blindness in action. Obama has coupled his bipartian rhetoric with dishonest and persistent attacks on Republicans. Blumner should visit a fact-checking site some time--one other than the sharply partisan Media Matters. Judging Obama's level of bipartisanship while in office should wait until after he has assumed the office.

Here is a man who stood up to the politics of personal destruction and rose above it by responding in measured tones, then calmly brushing the dirt off his sleeve. Even as they tried to paint him as a socialist and a terrorist sympathizer, he hewed to the higher road.

Blumner could show Dave Barry a thing or two about humor. It's hard not to laugh out loud at this stuff.

At least half the dirt on Obama's sleeve dropped from his own hand as he flung it at others. The "higher road" in this case meant that Obama could allow informal surrogates in the press, such as Blumner, to carry out the dirtiest attacks on his Republican opponent.

In the end, Obama proved that we are one nation. He won a huge mandate by taking more than 50 percent of the vote. He tore down barriers in the Old Confederacy by winning Florida, Virginia and North Carolina.

I wonder if Blumner felt that Bush had won a huge mandate in 2004 by capturing 51 percent of the vote? Somehow I doubt it. It is also doubtful that Obama broke down any barriers in the "Old Confederacy" without extensive icebreaking beforehand. All three states won by Obama are now populated extensively by people who moved from elsewhere. Again, it remains to be seen what Obama will accomplish in terms of racial reconciliation. The sum total through the present moment is probably scarcely above zero. Obama's long term association with Rev. Wright has seen to that.

The impossible was possible. Appealing to America's best aspirations turned out to be the best way to win. He will govern with those same instincts.

I guess we're not counting the lies about Medicare or Obama's repeat of the notion that McCain wanted the war in Iraq to last for an additional 100 years. We don't talk about those instincts. Not during the process of adult gloating, anyway.

"I will listen to you, especially when we disagree," Obama said to those who might worry about his plans for change. This is what thinking people do. They invite opposing views, knowing that they do not have a lock on wisdom.

Obama will be a president of our common values. He is not a man of vendettas and cronyism, who will use his election as an opportunity to grab what he can for narrow interests. Obama will govern with an eye to the future. He will choose investment over quick fixes and sober reflection over reflexive action.

This will be the sea change coming to Washington much more than a shift in political ideology.

The challenges going forward will be immense, but serious people who care about good governance are back in charge. It is just what we needed.

For those who cannot see the situation with the same pair of rose-tinted glasses that Blumñata wears, see my post on the likely fortunes of the Obama presidency.

We're probably getting four more years of Jimmy Carter, with an uncooperative Congress, bad economic decisions and inept foreign policy. That is not what we need.