Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Conciliatory republicans

Over the last week, I've been hearing a lot of strangely conciliatory sounding words from the right, like "Hey it was a hard election, but your guy won, congrats". I have to say these leave me strangely cold. As if the blasts of hell hadn't been coming from that direction since about 1986, and especially the last 8 years, and especially in this election. So what's the reason for all this bonhomie?
  • They're scared we'll do to them what they did to us. Personally, I'm ready for our 30 years of dominating the national discourse to the point that even the other side has to pretend they're us in order to get elected, then we dump on them.
  • They're thinking, this is the only way to have any influence now. Yes it feels a little funny to suddenly be part of the ruling class for a change.
  • They know the fairness doctrine is coming back, and they want to put it off as long as possible. In listening to right wing talk radio, I have heard them talking about the injustice, and inevitability of the return of the fairness doctrine. We can't disappoint them now can we?
  • It's temporary. Oh, yes. The floodgates of hell will re-open soon.
On the other side of the equation, on the left everyone is abuzz with all the things Obama must do in his first 100 days. Look below, I even pre-emptively made my own list. (#1: Election reform!). Immigration reform, ending the war in Iraq, tax reform, saving the economy, the list goes on and on and on. On the one hand he has promised he can do more than one thing at once, and I'll bet he can. On the other hand, some people are gonna be mighty disappointed in him in a year.

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