My take on the Obama victory.

I’m not a bitter clinger.  I wish Obama well, and hope (because I do cling to my naivete) that he has a successful presidency, for the good of the nation.

Obviously, I differ from his positions in a hundred-aught ways, but he’s the President Elect of my country.

There are lots of folks now execrating McCain for his campaign, and a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking, and a lot of it is backed up by earlier quarterbacking and criticism of his strategies and tactics, such as they were.  I’m one of those critics.  But McCain did what he thought was best in a year when the deck was stacked against the Republican candidate, whomever it would have been. During the current administration, the Republicans had control of Congress, more or less, for six years, and made an absolute hash of things.  As other Pollyannas have stated, the only way to reinvent the party was going to be by virtue of the kind of ass-handing the GOP has just experienced.

To whom do we look, now?  To Paul Ryan, for one–the anti-Feingold of my home state.  To Governor Palin, who now has the luxury of some time in which to study the national issues, and more good will, on the whole, than bad, now that she’s lost this first national race.  There are others whom we must promote.  And those who represent the Peggy Noonan-Christopher Hitchens inside-the-beltway ex-power elite have to go.  Pelosi, Reid, Murtha and company also need to be hammered mercilessly for being the enormous hacks that they are.

As Jeff has pointed out, it’s now time for a little grass roots movement of our own, a time to back people of whatever party, since I’m presently disgusted with the GOP establishment, who really do represent the aspirations and virtues of the American citizenry and the classical liberal values.  And it’s going to be easier to articulate those values, because they will be under assault.  Obama owes too much to too many not to make it so, although his ability to throw those who have outlived their usefulness under the bus provides a certain strange comfort at this stage.  We are all community organizers (and perhaps Mugwumps), now, and it is my hope that Protein Wisdom will continue to be a place where like-minded people can gather, not just to bitch and moan and vent, but to speak clearly to one another, hammer out principles and policies, and find ways to back representatives who will best demonstrate those principles.

The chorus of Blame Bushies can have their say.  He was disappointing in some ways, but certainly preferable to Gore or Kerry, and a great deal more honest than the vast majority of his detractors.

The MSM must be held to account for their defalcation.  That is where we need to start.  The vetting the vetters movement must continue and grow, and if the media complain about it, they need only be reminded that they have made themselves the news for decades now by glamorizing the coverage of the coverage.  There is a great reckoning to make.  Let us see that we do that.  Much of the support for Barack is the result, in my opinion, of eight years of continuous media mau-mauing that caused a great many people to vote for him just to get them to STFU.

Any talk of reinstituting the “Fairness Doctrine” must be met with a threat to extend it to NPR, for example.  The internet gives us the tools to watch the watchers.  It’s time for a return to handbills in their modern form.  It’s time to retake some of the public spaces.  It’s time to make things uncomfortable for the universities.  It’s time to get yourself elected to your local school board.  It’s time to begin working in earnest to dismantle race-based affirmative action and to substitute a measured finance-based affirmative action in high-school and college, because that is an investment in the socio-political POV of the next generation.  We all know why Jesse Jackson wanted to tear Obama’s balls off.  The Obama victory fucks with his gig.

If you have some area of expertise and interest–parental rights or education or tax policy or judicial matters, for example–I suggest you contact Jeff about establishing a satellite blog.  I say this not in order to balkanize PW, but because we need to renucleate around this and similar blogs and bring in the best voices who are not yet working for Jeff Bezos over at PJM.  And let’s also get back to having some fun.  I know that I’ve felt humor-challenged for the past few months, but it’s probably what we do best here: mock teh stupid.  If you take teh stupid too seriously, you make it feel important.  Andrew’s now got another political savior to let him down.

I solicit your ideas and your feedback.  But if you can’t take a joke, it’s going to be a looooooooong four years.

Oh, and during the uninterrupted sunshine of the next four years, hold Obama to account, as well.  Here’s my bro’s list of expectations.

Two, four, six, eight . . . time for us to gladiate.