More than anything else, Obama's victory makes me relieved. As a personification and product of the many successes of the civil rights era and further progress in race relations, it is a triumph and I'm happy to have witnessed such an historic moment. However, the euphoria shouldn't distract from the incredibly difficult work yet to be done. The victory is only a single step toward curing our myriad problems and not in and of itself a final success. I await fulfillment of these promises despite insoluble war and economy issues. Obama discussed all these themes more eloquently, but they deserve emphasis.
From many policy standpoints, I'm neutral or slightly favorable towards Obama. (As opposed to my strongly negative views of many McCain policies and maddening conservative rhetoric). Instead of begrudging, however, my support was enthusiastic due to not only his social impact, but his passive impact on the makeup of the Supreme Court and environmental policy. Robust enforcement and sane interpretation of current environmental statutes by new agency administrators will instantly improve upon Cheney's disastrous energy policies even without proactive implementation of new rules or statutes. The same goes for the Supreme Court - even uninspired selections by Obama would be preferable to McCain's, particularly given that Justices Stevens and Ginsburg appear most likely to retire next.
So I'm relieved. And that's all I have to say about that for a while.
No comments:
Post a Comment