Guest post by Jula
Earlier on Sunday, BfromC also had a nice reminder about Frank Schaeffer’s good piece on political sanity prevailing: "Obama Will Triumph - So Will America", also published in Huffington Post.
The article was written by Frank Schaeffer, already back on December 21, 2009, but they are words to consider when one is feeling pretty bad about how low things are going.
Final paragraph (it's worth reading the whole article):
The Future Looks Good
After Obama has served two full terms, (and he will), after his wisdom in moving deliberately and cautiously with great subtlety on all fronts -- with a canny and calculating eye to the possible succeeds, (it will), after the economy is booming and new industries are burgeoning, (they will be), after the doomsayers are all proved not just wrong but silly: let the record show that not all Americans were panicked into thinking the sky was falling.
Just because we didn’t get everything we wanted in the first short and fraught year Obama was in office not all of us gave up. Some of us stayed the course. And we will be proved right.
I saw that article when it came out originally and I thought he was right on. Obama came in with such huge (almost superhuman) expectations and this myth that the Dems have a filibuster proof Senate. They do not. They have low 50’s number of real Dems and then the Blue Dog “conserva-Dems” like Ben Nelson, Bayh, Landreau, Lincoln, etc. and “independents” like Lieberman that often side with the Republicans. And contribute to the right wing spin machine. Its impressive what he has gotten done so far, although I too get frustrated that more hasn’t happened. I’m glad to see even KO was more acknowledging of these facts in some of his criticism recently.
We cannot get discouraged even though the relentless right wing disinformation campaign seems to be winning the public debate lately! Especially Sarah’s disrespectful sniping and fear mongering.
Back to the fundraiser with Obama this past week:
Wow—talk about a difference from the Tea Party and Sarah rallies. Very racially diverse crowd, no disrespectful signs about the other side, no yelling, people bringing their kids, many seniors (supposedly a group Obama doesn’t have as a big base), many people talking about their charitable work. Some protesters outside, most of whom had various things on their signs. Nothing specific about the mosque issue that I saw. In fact, the opponent of the candidate Obama was stumping for was there in plain site and people just walked right by him and never said a harsh word. Some even greeted him.
There were some African American kids sitting next to me and you could just see them sit up a little straighter and beam with pride that this country was open minded enough to elect a black president who is such a wonderful role model for them.
As usual, Obama was intelligent, gracious and very articulate. He recounted the mess he inherited and the progress since he took office. He spoke about not giving into fear and division and not to underestimate the American workers. And that Americans have been through a lot and never lost hope. And yes we can.
Addressing his poll numbers, he emphasized that he is elected to do what was RIGHT, not what was popular and that sometimes you just have to establish the foundation to continually build upon (I assume that he was referring to healthcare, etc.). And if you don’t get everything right away you keep trying and need to take the long view.
Even the digs at Republicans were done with that same charming snarkiness that Rachel Maddow also does so well that it doesn’t come across as mean spirited. One of his best line: ”When you want your car to go forward you put it in “D”. And when you want to go backwards…..well, you know the rest."
I have certainly been frustrated with him sometimes. But we cannot lose site of the big picture. And we cannot lose faith—the good guys are in charge now. I thank God every day that we elected this super smart and decent person versus Uncle Fester and the crazy lady from Wasilla.
So, in the vein of slow and steady progress, the ‘gaters are keeping at it to expose the hypocrisy and move this country forward. In the end, I agree with Frank Schaeffer that truth and decency will win out.
P.S. Obama’s other best line: "There are no coincidences."
P.S.P.S. The national media were there and I discreetly gave some of them a card with palingates URL when they walked by. Ya never know!
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Note by Patrick:
I always thought that the following clip is a fitting depiction of what Barack Obama was facing when he took over the leadership of the country.
Obama campaigned in the rain in Chester, PA, on October 28, 2008. It was a bitter cold day. John McCain cancelled his own rally 50 miles north due to the bad weather.
The Americans voted for the tough guy. Good choice!
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UPDATE - GOOD NEWS:
The "Palin-curse" now struck CSU Stanislaus with full force - again (see our previous reporting). The Superior Court of the State of California ordered in a very precise and convincing judgement that CSU Stanislaus has to release Sarah Palin's secret contract which the CSU Stanislaus Foundation signed with the Washington Speakers Bureau.
Fortunately, we already got hold of the original ruling, which can be downloaded HERE.
SFGate reported today that CSU Stanislaus is "perplexed":
CSU has yet to receive the judge's ruling, said spokeswoman Claudia Keith, "We're perplexed as to how he could have come to that conclusion," she said. "Nevertheless, we'll comply with whatever the court has ordered."
Well, we are not "perplexed", because the reason for the need to disclose the contract is pretty obvious, it's not exactly rocket science:
The court also stated in the description of the facts of the case that the University was so eager to protect Sarah Palin and her request to keep the contract secret that at the beginning they went so far to LIE for Sarah Palin:
Fortunately, due to the persistence of "California Aware", the two students Alicia Lewis and Ashli Briggs and State Senator Leland Yee, the University didn't succeed with their dirty tricks.
Now we will have the pleasure to see for the first time a complete copy of Sarah Palin's contract which was negotiated for her by the Washington Speakers Bureau.
Secrecy is Sarah Palin's best friend. Good to see that outside Alaska, people are willing to apply the law correctly, even if it doesn't favor Sarah Palin and her desperate need for secrecy.
Inside Alaska, however, there isn't much hope.
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BONUS:
You know why:
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