America elects first Muslim socialist terrorist as president

He's a Muslim, possibly an Arab. He wasn't really born in America. He pals around with terrorists. He's a socialist who wants to spread the wealth around. He's a tax and spend liberal. His pastor hates America. He's not patriotic. His wife hates America. He hates Israel. His wife hates whitey. He breaks his promises. He's a corrupt Chicago politician. He's inexperienced and wants to talk to dictators. (Psst... he's also Black.)

Yet somehow he got elected anyway. Barack Obama has had enough mud slung at him to bury most any other candidate, and yet he is still standing tall. Why? Because enough Americans stood tall with him to make the difference--including millions who might never have been expected to. Sure, one might expect that the lies and dirty tricks wouldn't work in California or New York or Massachusetts or Illinois. But they also didn't work in Pennsylvania and Ohio. They didn't work in Florida or Virginia. Nor in Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and Minnesota; and not in North Carolina or Indiana either. And even in those "red states" that did go against Obama, millions of people saw through the lies.

So this election isn't just about one of the most charismatic and perceptive politicians this country has ever seen, and perhaps doesn't even really deserve. It's about the majority of Americans finally wising up to what is going on around them. They may not always be this smart, and millions of Americans have shown that they can be amazingly gullible at times. But at the moment their eyes seem to be open, and that creates a window of opportunity for remaking this nation into what it really could be--and what, as Obama understood better than all those who tried to tear him down, it really wants to be.

Old Dreams, Present Opportunities. On the eve of Obama's victory, Ken Brociner wrote in In These Times about what it means for the 1960s generation, whose utopian dreams had almost faded out in recent decades.

The view from abroad: GAZA — From far away, this is how it looks: There is a country out there where tens of millions of white Christians, voting freely, select as their leader a black man of modest origin, the son of a Muslim. There is a place on Earth — call it America — where such a thing happens. Even where the United States is held in special contempt, like here in this benighted Palestinian coastal strip, the “glorious epic of Barack Obama,” as the leftist French editor Jean Daniel calls it, makes America — the idea as much as the actual place — stand again, perhaps only fleetingly, for limitless possibility -- Ethan Bronner, in today's New York Times.

More views from abroad. Le Monde's international roundup of TV announcements.

More video clips here:




The Bradley effect. One of the little extra pleasures of this election is that we have probably heard the last of this nonsense. As Glenn Greenwald points out in Salon, for the most part Obama outperformed the polls' predictions.

Exit right. For Bush and Cheney.

The happiest woman in America? I'm guessing Cindy McCain.

Tensions between McCain and Palin camps come to light. So says the Los Angeles Times and many other media outlets. Take it outside, folks, in here we are busy rebuilding the country.

Post a Comment

14 Comments

Anonymous said…
Michael, congratulations. Obama ran a brilliant campaign, McCain a lousy one and the results show.

I'm hoping and praying that every thing you believe about obama becomes true, because I have honest doubts based on my knowledge of human nature. But, Obama won and won handily. Again, Congratulations.
Michael Balter said…
Thanks, GM. Your comments on your own blog that you would not accept an Obama presidency have been widely circulated; I hope that you have reconsidered them in the light of the fact that the majority of Americans have spoken loud and clear about who they want as their leader.
Anonymous said…
Great Blog, as always, Michael. What a night! Sometime, I might actually get some sleep. Keep up the great work... I, like you, look forward to Blogging about some other topics now.
Anonymous said…
Michael, that was written in spite and anger. It was also quotes from a number of democratic friends from 2000 and 2004. Maybe even some of yours. He is my president, but I will loyally oppose every stupid move he makes and I suspect that he will make a bunch of them. I hope you are right and I am wrong for our countries sake, but I suspect not.
jqb said…
No equivalence can be drawn between Bush and Obama. Americans never spoke loud and clear that they wanted George Bush for their President, not even with all the sliming and swiftboating of Gore and Kerry. Bush claimed a mandate he didn't have -- a corrupt seizure of power. From the right, Obama will get what always comes from the right. The true loyal opposition to any boneheaded moves he makes will come from the left. But for now, we rejoice.
Anne Gilbert said…
My fingers were crossed, firmly, right up until the moment McCain conceded. I was really worried that the Republicans would try some kind of "dirty tricks" to prevent some people(aimed at the newly registered, who were mostly Democrats) from voting at all. And I was absolutely flabbergasted that Florida, of all places, actually went "majority Obama. As you can probably guess, I'm very, very happy at the moment Of course, I'm also well aware that the road ahead is going to be challenging and difficult, both for Obama, and for the country as a whole. We must always remain vigilant.
Anne G
Richard Parker said…
You were absolutely right, Anne, to feel a little doubt. When I found that 20% of Colorado's potential voters were disenfranchised by Republican shenanigans, I got really worried.
But then, I'm a natural pessimist, and I consider Obama only a little bit left of a very right-wing America.

He supported the 'bailout' a cash giveaway to America's richest 1%, he's for further enswampment in Afghanistan (who the hell cares what kind of government they've got?), and now he's appointed Rahm Emmanuel as his Chief of Staff.

What's changed?
Richard Parker said…
Mr Roper - "He is my president, but I will loyally oppose every stupid move he makes and I suspect that he will make a bunch of them. I hope you are right and I am wrong for our countries sake, but I suspect not."

You are absolutely right - Obama is a good committee member, but no leader. I suspect he will balls it up very soon.
Robert Magill said…
Michael,
You took me to task for relying on the AOL polls during the election. You were right and I could not have been more wrong. I really thought racism would prevail, happily it didn't. I was inspired to do this short bit of prognostication yesterday.
Bob Magill

The Death of Hip Hop (R.I.P.)


One of the most striking cultural results of the Obama election will be the gradual demise of the mind set that has produced a really bizarre phenomenon.

No longer facing a future that includes, statistically ,a stretch in state prison, the teenage fondness for beltless, oversize, droopy drawers and tentlike Tees, will come to a resounding end and maybe the "gangsta" era will fold as well.

Another welcome change will be the cessation of "the dozens" tricked up on steroids in our time as rap, but remaining still, the work of our old trickster friend, the "signifying monkey".

Jack Kennedy popularized the tee shirt but also sent hundreds of fedora hat manufacturers into terminal decline by appearing hatless at his inauguration. Barack Obama will set the fashion from here on in.

I predict a 180 turn, shortly, to an Abe Lincolnesque , pipe stem lean , very serious demeanor look, throughout the hood.

You heard this first from an old white guy who could be all wet

http://www.noabominoidshere.blogspot.com/
Richard Parker said…
Obama has blown it already by appointing Rahm Emmanuel as his Chief of Staff.

This fellow is a dual-nationalist (Zion first), a first-class bastard
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0DE1DF173FF936A25755C0A961958260&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=all
and a general no-good.

His grandpa was a spy for Menachem Begin's terrorist group, Irgun.

Obama could have done better than this.

If he appoints Madeleine Albright or Colin Powell (or Zbigniew Brezhinski) as Secretary of State, then I'll conclude his long campaign has cost him his marbles.
Richard Parker said…
Sorry, it was Rahm Emmanuels' Father who spied for Menachem Begin's terrorists, and renamed his family after a colleague in the Stern Gang.

Quote from Rahm's terrorist dad:
"Obviously he [ Rahm Emanuel ] will influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn't he be? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to clean the floors of the White House."
terryt said…
Richard wrote: "Obama has blown it already by appointing Rahm Emmanuel as his Chief of Staff". It's taken me a while to realise you're correct.

I guess that's the end of any influence Samantha Power might have had, and the end of any prospects for peace in the Middle East.

Perhaps it was the price Obama was required to pay to get Bill Clinton's old mates to change sides: Ms. Power goes. Her ideas definitely would have been a hindrance to heavy armament sales.
terryt said…
And Iran has probably moved back into the gunsights.
Superb Jon said…
Brzezinski spawned Zia al Haq, Khomeini, and bin Laden and wants to break up the superpowers using Aztlan and Kosovo as shown in Joel Garreau's Nine Nations. Brzezinski , Buckley and Buchanan winked anti-Semite votes for Obama, delivered USA to Pope's feudal basket of Bamana Republics. Michael Pfleger and Joe Biden prove Obama is Pope boy. Talal got Pontifical medal as Fatima mandates Catholic-Muslim union against Jews (Francis Johnson, Great Sign, 1979, p. 126), Catholic Roger Taney wrote Dred Scott decision. John Wilkes Booth, Tammany Hall and Joe McCarthy were Catholics. Now Catholic majority Supreme Court. NYC top drop outs: Hispanic 32%, Black 25%, Italian 20%. NYC top illegals: Ecuadorean, Italian, Polish. Ate glis-glis but blamed plague on others, now lettuce coli. Their bigotry most encouraged terror yet they reap most security funds. Rabbi circumcizes lower, Pope upper brain. Tort explosion by glib casuistry. Bazelya 1992 case proves PLO-IRA-KLA links.