Hurl-Blogging the Inaugur-A-Palooza, Reflux
Helpful advice for lefties. Keep a bag handy. It isn’t just weak-stomached rightwing nutcases who may be looking at lunch again. The handwringing Kumbayah chorus porked out at Obama’s all-you-can-bash lib joint, and when you do that, then sooner or later, what goes down must come up. Pethokoukis at US News & World Report:
For many liberals, that Obamagasmic “tingle going up their legs” from the campaign season — to paraphrase MSNBC’s Chris Matthews — may have crept upward into stomach-churning queasiness as Inauguration Day nears. Consider this counterfactual: If John McCain had won the 2008 presidential election (just a scant half million votes needed to swing the other way in Colorado, Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia … I know, I know), it’s easy to imagine him picking Bono-approved, “new age” evangelist Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation, leaving Robert Gates as defense secretary and proposing an economic stimulus package that included $300 billion in tax breaks for individuals and businesses.
Yet that’s just the sort of “big change” Barack Obama has provided in the two months since winning a near-landslide victory over the man Democrats derided as “McBush.” (Let’s see will.i.am make a YouTube video about this right-turn of events.) Even worse for the Left, Obama advisers are now signaling, says the New York Times, “that they may put off renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, overhauling immigration laws, restricting carbon emissions, raising taxes on the wealthy and allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military.” You know, like, pretty much the very heart and soul of the liberal policy agenda. Even healthcare reform might only be getting what aides call a “down payment” as a “sign of dedication to the broader goals.” Let the wretching begin, Daily Kossacks.
…
But liberals shouldn’t fear — nor conservatives be reassured — that Obama is somehow morphing into “Reagan with a human face,” to rework an old Marxist chestnut. Or another Clinton. Obama is still going to push for a dramatic government expansion into healthcare, demand higher taxes once the economy is in gear, launch a new wave of business regulation and spend hundreds of billions on infrastructure, both green and grey. Their sort of “change” is still on the way, it’s just going to take a bit longer than they expected. Like Obama said on Election Night: “We may not get there in one year or even one term …”
Fun column, though it kind of falls apart at the end, where the guy failed to notice that no one … I’m guessing not even Obama … knows what he’s going to do. That wind hasn’t blown yet. A nod to reader JM Hanes.
Hurl-Blogging the Inaugur-A-Palooza the first time here. Yesterday was all about con-nausea. Looks like today’s theme is going to be the Obamist upheaval.
NYT, Gitmo may not be closed for a year:
President-elect Barack Obama plans to issue an executive order on his first full day in office directing the closing of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, people briefed by Obama transition officials said Monday.
But experts say it is likely to take many months, perhaps as long as a year, to empty the prison that has drawn international criticism since it received its first prisoners seven years ago this week. One transition official said the new administration expected that it would take several months to transfer some of the remaining 248 prisoners to other countries, decide how to try suspects and deal with the many other legal challenges posed by closing the camp.
People who have discussed the issues with transition officials in recent weeks said it appeared that the broad outlines of plans for the detention camp were taking shape. They said transition officials appeared committed to ordering an immediate suspension of the Bush administration’s military commissions system for trying detainees.
In addition, people who have conferred with transition officials said the incoming administration appeared to have rejected a proposal to seek a new law authorizing indefinite detention inside the United States. The Bush administration has insisted that such a measure is necessary to close the Guantánamo camp and bring some detainees to the United States.
Mr. Obama has repeatedly said he wants to close the camp. But in an interview on Sunday on ABC, he indicated that the process could take time, saying, “It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize.”
It’s like a lot of things that way. The more you gobble, the harder it is to bring up.
Meanwhile, this looks kind of like bulemia. You know, trying to have it both ways. Triple entendre not intended. OK, maybe it is.
NYT: Gay bishop is asked to say prayers at Inaugural event.
President-elect Barack Obama has asked V. Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, to deliver the invocation at an inaugural event on Sunday on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Gay rights advocates saw the move as a way to compensate for Mr. Obama’s decision to give the Rev. Rick Warren, a prominent megachurch pastor from California who opposes same-sex marriage, the high-profile role of delivering the invocation at the inauguration next week.
Moving on, straight hurl … double entendre not intended, I just meant it’s not a lefty hurl … here’s everyone who wants to serenade Obama. HBO’s Lincoln Memorial Inaug kickoff concert will be themed “We Are One.” Hey, that’s hurtfully exclusionary for everyone who isn’t. You know, an Obama fan.
Malkin with the news that Obama’s going to eat Abe Lincoln’s food. The cloying treacly nauseating saccharine suckup aside, it sounds like a recipe for salmonella …
Remember … never stop chucking upward!
Welcome Malkinistas, etal. Always good to see you. Today’s light reading, from the guy who brought you Fiasco, comes The Gamble. Meanwhile, tanks for the memories, in another dusty corner of the same damn war, Treading Lightly. Not everything’s going down in this economy, but you’ve gotta ask yourself whether virtue going this dear hasn’t already cheapened itself.
Topics: Obama
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:09 am Comments (2) on Tuesday, January 13, 2009
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January 13th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
[...] The appetizer will feature a seafood stew in puff pastry – including scallops, shrimp and lobster – in honor of Lincoln’s love of seafood. [...]
January 13th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
[...] even taken office yet. But bless my relijun clingin’ soul, he sure knows how to throw a party no one will ever forget — if they can afford to be [...]