"President-Elect Obama"

It has a nice ring to it.

The remote software that runs this weblog decided to go rogue on me shortly after the previous posting. I wrote some pithy things that might have been funny if they'd been posted at the time but they wouldn't post. Here's what's on my mind at the moment…

In the ten minutes before polls closed in the west and CNN called the race for Obama, Wolf Blitzer kept "hinting" (with all the subtlety of a Gallagher finale) that something big would happen shortly. During this time, he also kept talking about how many people were watching CNN around the world, showing us crowd shots in Kenya and other locales. At first, I thought he was pushing too hard the idea that the whole planet is watching CNN.

And then I realized: It's not that they're watching CNN. It's that they're watching America change its government. That does not happen in every country, at least not without bloodshed. It's one of our strengths as a nation. Every so often, the citizens can get together and change the government. It reminds you that that "We, the People…" thing isn't just for show.

McCain's concession speech — obviously written, probably written some time ago — was generally classy, even if (understandably) some in his audience were not. It may be the first time I've had any respect for John McCain since he began running for President. I'm sorry we seem to live in a country where you can't talk like that until after you lose.

One of my Conservative friends is near suicidal at this moment, lamenting that America is now going to go Communist and surrender to terrorists and I think he also believes that flowers will no longer bloom in the meadow. I have suggested to him that he's suffering the pangs of believing his own bull; that one of the reasons Obama won is that most of America didn't buy all that crap about him being a Socialist or a co-conspirator with mad bombers and such, perhaps because it wasn't true.

Whoops. Obama's about to speak. I want to pay attention to this.