The Inevitable Inauguration Post

It's official: history in made in the United States. As a coincidence, the Celebrity Death Clock for Obama is now spinning fast enough to start fires.

But I don't want to be too pessimistic - there are a lot of other people doing that already. I will, instead, look at one person who has decided that Barack Obama isn't (yet) an angel:

Obama 'is no Martin Luther King'

There's a lot written here, but it boils down to this: Obama is a politician, and Martin Luther King wasn't. That's pretty much it.

"Obama is Lyndon Johnson."

This is because Johnson was also a president neck-deep in a war. As such, Johnson couldn't speak out about human rights... or something.

"Dr King would find creative ways to confront Obama's militarism, and to actively resist further diversion of public wealth to the bankers."

Hope you don't think that "bankers" means "Jews". Because, gosh, that would be wrong. Just because author Glen Ford talks pretty much exclusively about the war in the Middle East. Oh, and Israel/Palestine.

Plus more than a little "how dare blacks celebrate Obama's presidency!"

"Tens of millions of African-Americans - who did not choose the little-known Obama to be their champion, but supported him near-universally at the polls once his candidacy had been made "viable" - will celebrate a vicarious attainment of power when Obama is sworn in."

It's not that I actually mind Ford reminding people that Obama is actually pretty dang moderate in his views and his votes for a Democrat. But I do have to add that the people who claim leftists view Obama as some kind of saviour are... conservatives. The people on the left, at least the ones I read (look over to the right, there), are perfectly aware that he's a fantastic orator (which won him the election) and is otherwise a thoughtful, coherent politician. This doesn't stop The Daily Show and The Colbert Report from mocking both the President-Elect (now President, of course) and the fanboy culture that's sprung up around him.

Meaning he looks pretty damn good by comparison, but is otherwise just a good choice for leader right now. After all, a single candle seems as bright as the sun when you've been living in a hole for eight years.

Even so, it is interesting to see Ford complain that a president doesn't go ramming Israeli warships like Cynthia McKinney did (kinda). He's complaining that the man who wanted to be president of the United States (anyone know why yet?) doesn't have a two-dimensional sensibility to the world; he doesn't make hard and clear (and public) decisions on what is morally right and morally wrong in every circumstance. Why can't Obama just stand up and tell the world how to behave? How could that possibly be wrong?

After all, only one decision is important: choose wrong, and terrible things could happen...

"[...]not all African-Americans have morphed into warmongering clones of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice."

Because we all know how identical they are. So long as President Obama can avoid becoming Secretary of State, he should be just fine.