Why 66 Million Americans Got It Right (This Time)

A handful of days ago, President-elect Obama sat down with the editorial board of the Washington Post. His remarks were completely unprepared, wholly off-the-cuff, unscripted...you get the point. Reading his answers reminded me just how far we've come in eight years, and just how much further we need to go before it's all said and done. I was also reminded (as if I needed to be) how far off the course of progress we've veered during the failed experiment in "compassionate conservatism" that was the Bush Administration.

When asked by the Post if promoting the American ideal of "freedom and democracy" would be part of his agenda, our President-elect responded,

"Well, I think it needs to be at a central part of our foreign policy. It is who we are. It is one of our best exports, if it is not exported simply down the barrel of a gun. I think a lot of the ways that he[Bush] spoke about it were very eloquent, but I think the mistake that was made is drawing an equivalence between democracy and elections.(emphasis mine)"

Get it, friends and neighbors? Simply holding elections does not equal democracy. Democracy is what's supposed to happen between elections. For example, our outgoing Prez'nint decided that he was going to shower the planet with Freedom Juice™. I'm not going to get into an argument over whether what happened next was piss-poor planning or the law of unintended consequences; I'm simply going to point out that Afghanistan is now a narco-state, Iraq has been engaged in religious cleansing for the last three years, Hamas was democratically elected to lead in Gaza, and Hezbollah was democratically elected to lead Lebanon.

It is with that sentiment in mind, elections aren't democracy, that reminded me where I was in 2000, and how I felt after Bush stole Florida. And how I felt last November when Brit Hume interrupted Karl Rove's "McCain has to win Ohio to win the election" comment to inform ol' Turdblossom that Obama had won Ohio. The rest of that evening is fuzzy in my memory thanks to 21yr. old single-malt whiskey.

President-elect Obama went on to address the problem with believing that elections equal democracy:

"They are one facet of a liberal order, as we understand it. And so in a lot of countries, you know, the first question is, if you go back to Roosevelt's four freedoms, the first question is freedom from want and freedom from fear.If people aren't secure, if people are starving, then elections may or may not address those issues, but they are not a perfect overlay. And if we ignore those things, then oftentimes an election can just backfire or at least won't deliver for the people the kinds of -- it may raise expectations but not deliver what they're looking for"

Dig it, folks? Ignoring the real problems that allowed Barack Obama to get elected will blow up in not only his face, but in everyone of ours who worked our asses off to get him elected. Again, the democratic process begins after the election, and doesn't stop after the first hundred days, or the first two years.

One thing Barack Obama has said over and over is that this election wasn't about him- it was about us. "Together, we can go to Washington", he said at one of his first stump speeches in Iowa, and we believed him. Given these remarks to the Post's editorial board, I am inclined to keep believing. I'm even inclined to scratch my head less over some of the choices he's made in terms of his cabinet. This is a man who can see the larger picture, opt for substance over style, and pragmatically, purposefully, and (yes) Presidentially move our country in the right direction.

But not without your help.

Til Next Time,