My Silence Should Not Be Misconstrued as Satisfaction

Because I am not Content.

I am not finding my post-election voice, that's for sure. I sense that George Bush is winning. Most of the malignant tumors which he started in American foreign policy seem destined to be validated through their indefinite extension. I'm speaking of his interminal occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I'm basing this expectation on the appointment of pro-Iraq invasion people such as Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, and Jim Jones. These are not neo-cons. That's true enough. Even though Barack Obama is proving true to his word - that he is not a peacenik lefty but a realistic centrist - I am disappointed that the Iraq occupation will not be summarily disassembled and removed.

Neither does Bush appear to be threatened by incipient prosecution on inauguration day+1. Both are disappointments but not surprises. It's ironic that Bush may have escaped the fate he deserved by virtue, if I can use that word, of the penultimate wreck and ruin into which he has plunged our once-great country. I'm speaking not only of the two seemingly inextricable foreign occupations he is bequeathing the next two presidencies (or more), but also the constitutional, economic, and diplomatic damage the country has suffered. Ironically, it is the extremes of devastation from Bush's rule which promise to protect him the most.

So great will be the efforts and energies required to undo the unfathomable damage done to our American polity, that no political resources can be reserved to prosecute Bush or the horses he's riding out with. In a real sense, Busheney's are the perfect crimes. They have committed mass murder and they are getting away with it. O.J. Simpson has nothing on them.

I cannot muster much voice to complain about Obama's administration in its formulative phase. After all, I feel like I'm on my knees, grasping for consolations of some sort. We'll have an extraordinarily gifted and elite leader who is well-schooled in law, in history, in rhetoric, and in the world outside of our shores. For the first time this century. Going forward, neither I nor my dog will feel compelled to bark when his voice is heard on nightly TV news.

For the time being, that's a consolation that's going to have to do for me.