On Inauguration Day

I am uninfected by the frenetic enthusiasm fleeting through the cubicles of Siemens Water today. A projector screen was set up in the cafeteria at work today so that we could watch the Inauguration live. As I was walking the other way from the caf', a coworker asked if I was going to watch history being made. I told him I would watch from my desk.

In fact, I wore black today for the occasion. I'm not sure anyone noticed.

I have had many opportunities to be impressed with the manner and style of our newly inaugurated leader. He has demonstrated finesse and class on several occasions. He's very charming - and I mean that in the best way. But one's manner and bearing are never the sole indicator of trustworthiness - they should not even be the primary indicator. I'm glad the man has class. It's certainly no negative. But let him be judged on his record, and let his former actions give us a picture of the man. Every one of his actions has shown him to be an agent of the sort of change desired by the far-left of the political spectrum.

If you're like me, you think that many of the difficulties in today's world are related to a gradual slide towards the ideals of men and women like Obama. Obama pitched himself as a moderate, and America bought it. I have good reason to suspect that it is not the case. I think that he will militate for social issues that will soften our resolve and seal our fate - our fate of falling into a prolonged sigh that will end in the fading and eventual extinguishment of what used to be called "the West".

The din of enthusiasm today brought to mind a line in Anna Karenina when the rustic Dolly goes to visit the cosmopolitan household of Anna and Vronsky. She says that while she was there, she felt like she was in a play and she was the only one who didn't know her lines. I feel like I am in the midst of a play, but no one else knows that it is a play. They all think that to change the world all that we really need to do is to want to change it - and so they are happy because they do. Look what we did. Curtain falls; happily ever after, etc.

All you did was vote for a guy that no one is sure of - the Journal had a op-ed piece entitled "The Opacity of Hope". I think the bulk of Americans have been hustled, and a good portion wanted to be hustled very badly. But I think that we got the opposite of what we needed. We need a healthy dose of reality, but we got a fantasy.

I told a friend the other night that my primary hope is that hte economy goes into the shitter before Obama can do very much. It's already happening, to some extent. That's scheudenfruede people, and it ain't pretty.

Here's to President Obama, and to these United States. May we get either what we need or what we deserve.