Current Comedy 11/11/08: The Old “Wake up the Morning after Screaming,‘Oh My God, What Have We Done’” Routine

You May Ask Yourself, Where Does That Highway Lead To?
And You May Say To Yourself, Oh My God, What Have I Done?
--Talking Heads, “Once in a Lifetime”

It’s morning in America. Like the teenager once so hypnotized by the brilliant glow in her boyfriend’s eyes, who now finds herself sneaking back into the house with unsightly stains in unmentionable places, many Americans woke up on Wednesday Nov. 5th checking themselves for long-term effects of their debauchery. A Black man elected president, Mandingo never seemed so taboo. And here we had done it. Obama had made a dream come true, right then, right there for so many Americans. Now what?
Change has come, but just where it is going is still anybody’s guess. Who would have thought that a politician’s website would become a national overnight sensation giving America a new idol to ogle at Change.gov. Or that suddenly policy wonking is sexy again. Who would have thought a Peruvian Hairless would have a chance at being First Mutt, or that Americans would “ooh and ah” over a trick as old as Checkers.
Elsewhere Obama graces special issues of People Magazine and kids of creeps across America woke up on the 5th to find Obama hadn’t sold their parents into white slavery, made Islam the official religion or forced them to marry gay people. However the “Obama is the Antichrist” bloggers are s&*(#@ in their pants right now as crowds around the world go wild and ignite a global spirit of uniting.
It seems we actually have a liberal majority in America and that the propaganda the right’s been force feeding us over these last several years is exactly the malarkey many thought it was all along. Just one of the many distortions we might find lodged in the filter American media uses to shield the American public. Now what do we do now that we got him?
Well, like with any straw man trussed up to appear presidential, it doesn’t take long for the buffoonery to show. When Joe Biden warned Obama would be tested in less than six months by some world leader, no one realized the test would come, not from abroad, but from typically slimy Dems in his own party and secret provisions in the Big Deal Bailout. It turns out as so often happens with the Dems, once the rhetoric is over and we get down to definitions, it seems they prefer to define “change” as “change from your hand to mine.”
Democracy Now is currently reporting that a heretofore secret passage of the $700 billion, no make that 850 billion, no actually it is well over a trillion tax dollar giveaway to big business has, not only the already acknowledged 13 billion dollar CEO bonus component, but also a clandestine $140 billion windfall profits clause that Dem senator Max Baucus didn’t want you to know about. According to the Washington Post, “Staffers with Senate Finance Committee chair, Max Baucus, a Democrat, reportedly asked that an administration briefing on the tax code change be kept secret. … Congressional aides admitted lawmakers agreed to keep the change hidden to avoid public outrage.”
Cats out of the bag and I’m ready to be outraged. How about you?
How Obama handles this mess will define the kind of president we purchased. Hopefully it won’t show that Bush isn’t the only one capable of squandering massive amounts of goodwill when given a little taste of power.
To complicate matters, at this same time in the same state where foul-up hedge fund managers are soon to be rewarded with even more tax payer money, the state of New York is planning to cut billions out of services, so citizens will suffer so the wealthy can get wealthier. “In with the new boss--” Meanwhile the Fed is loaning so much money out that they will not reveal the names of the companies in question in fear the news will threaten the market. “--Same as the old boss.”
So, it looks like the first real test Obama has to face will not come from abroad but from the way the American elite including his own party are all too visibly bilking the American public. Villains like Iran, North Korea, Chavez, will have to wait their turn, if America continues to be its own worst enemy.
--mikel weisser writes from the left coast of AZ.