This should be a good time. Hillary finally conceded and Our Guy could be seven months away from his inauguration.
And yet. And yet.
I am filled with an impending sense of dread and doom. Darth Vader music is playing in my head each time I think of what’s coming.
It’s not the idea of McCain taking office that turns my stomach. It’s not the idea of Obama taking office and breaking his many promises, being steamrolled in the same way Clinton was flattened by the political machine that keeps the White House institutionalized.
It’s the idea of Obama not making it to November, much less not making it to August, much less not making it to… tomorrow. I fear for his safety every time I see or hear him.
Whenever there’s a live news feed either on television or radio, I close my eyes and exhale before he speaks, hoping he’ll make it through the speech, hoping he’ll make it home to his two beautiful daughters. Kurt Andersen describes a similar phenomena in last week’s New York magazine: “Every time I watch him work the crowds, I cringe a little, dreading the lurching nut and pop-pop. Any assassination is horrific; the murder of Obama could be a national trauma beyond reckoning.”
Others have voiced this concern, people that run the gamut from Jesse Ventura to Doris Lessing; in a great NYT article from last October, a reporter spent time in the beauty parlors of the Carolinas, asking these Magnolias if they preferred Hillary to Barack. Miss Clara said she was not voting for Barack in the primary as a way to protect him: “I fear that they would just kill him, that he wouldn’t even have a chance.”
Now Public went so far as to wonder who would want to harm Obama, and in their research found an opinion piece from Ottawa Sun columnist Earl McRae who actually describes his imagined version of an Obama assassination. It’s chilling, hearing him describe how “Obama grab[s] his chest and his eyes widen and his mouth opens and the crowd screams” as Obama “falls to the ground.” McRae then goes on to list reasons why people would want to harm Obama, reasons that have to do with his middle name, the religion of his stepfather, and oh yeah, the color of his skin.
This fear has even penetrated the thick skull of Huckabee, whose poor judgment is on display in this joke made to the members of the NRA, a joke which has widely speculated to have been staged:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8zBYx3RigI[/youtube]
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I fear that by now saying it out loud, I might make it happen. But I also hope that by giving it voice, I am able to unlock the spell it has cast on my brain. I would hope the Secret Service is working twice as hard – though this article suggests even they are conspiring to look the other way if something wicked this way comes. Too often, we buy the alarm system after we’ve been burgled, rather than before; we boost the airport screening after its been breached. Why don’t we buck the trend and over-react NOW.
Do whatever it takes to keep him safe. Quell his Q-factor. Keep him inside. Cover the windows. Dip him and his family in bullet-proof plastic and then surround them with four inches of plexiglass. Construct whatever womb is necessary to deliver him to office. He is our future.
As I have for these many months, I try to let hope wash over me and carry my dreams to improbable places. I thought Hillary had him licked for sure. And yet, at every turn, he has surprised me with his fearlessness and with his candor, and even more shocking, millions of people seem To Believe as well. Obama inspires in me a faith I have not felt since I could first vote. I was in Chicago at the time, and I knocked on every apartment door within a 5 block radius of the Belmont El stop. My guy won that year, and I found myself that Election Day in a drunken ballroom. I was actually wearing pantyhose, and I was actually pledging with no irony at all that I wouldn’t stop thinking about tomorrow.
I hope that this November 4th finds us all with champagne in our hands (pantyhose optional) and singing that it’s a Beautiful Day (or whatever U2 song has been appropriated for the occasion). I prefer any song to the Darth Vader thum-thum-tha-thum that stings every tomorrow that could be.
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A super PS to those getting married at 5:01pm today, California Supreme Court Standard Time: Finally, finally finally. It’s about fucking time. At long last, tomorrow is today. Much love.
I wouldn’t stop thinking about tomorrow
Me too! Is this the second Clinton election we’re discussing here? Because I was really inspired by Clinton that year (which was the third presidential election I had voted in), and almost in spite of myself — everything I had learned growing up counseled cynicism. But when Clinton won I was just beside myself. In the subsequent four years I would come to despise the Republican party wholeheartedly; but at the time I was just full of optimism.
You know you have just made pantyhose non-optional, right?
Speaking of Obama, have you all seen the video of him thanking his campaign staff? (I can’t remember whether someone here has linked it.) Kind of amazing, I must admit.
Also: w00t for the California brides and grooms! Thanks for the reminder, Dorothy.
Also: Why is nobody commenting these past few days?
these past few days
Who reads blogs when they’re not at work?
No, I mean, like, last Friday. Was there a holiday nobody told me about?
Also, I do.
writing this during yet another insomnia filled night (even after taking two over the counter sleeping pills a 10pm). so forgive me if i don’t make too much sense.
you’ve put in to words what i dread. but still i soldier on, hopeful that this america which i’ve come to love (ironically because of obama — because a story such as his is borne of the kind of hope that only the america, of which i’ve never felt apart, can only provide pen and paper to voice).
last week in fit of panic like what you described i sent an imploring email to all of the black folks i know to a)remind that not to do what our folks usually do, talk a lot of shit, but chose not let their voices be heard by voting and b) to pray… b/c my people PRAY… hard and often. I asked them to lift barack, michelle and their two beautiful daughters in prayer and shroud them in the goodness that i believe is god. my hope, my prayer is that god hears us, not just for the good of barack’s personal safety, but for the good of this country and the… world. because i swear to god, if the forces of evil prevail and silence his voice, you and i and the MILLIONS of people who believe so strongly in this man, will never survive it.
And so… i’ll ask the same of you that i asked of my friends and family. as person of spirit — do what you can and what feels comfortable, close your eyes daily and meditate on his safety. ask your friends to do the same. good thoughts are a vibration and they can change the course of history. let us try to make history and do our very best, in our small way, to guide him safely toward his journey. because the alternative is just too painful to bare.
I’m going to write (mostly) about Senator Obama next week.
dave and i were downtown once at the former world trade center site. it was some kind of anniversary, memorial day?, sept 11th?, veterans day? something.
i turned to dave and said “growing up in the shadow of the 60’s i always envied those people because they lived in a revolutionary moment. but now i know what that feels like, and it makes me kind of sick.”
watching obama on that you-tube link, and thinking about the plausibility of what you suggest gives me that same sick feeling.
it really could be a kennedy scenario.
but of course we all hope not.
That same fear is why Colin Powell decided not to run back then, isn’t it? at his wife’s (totally rational, I think) insistence?
I dread this scenario every day, and even more so after all the coverage on the anniversary of the RFK assasination. None of the commentators I heard mentioned any possible connection (obviously, since what poor taste that would be) but it only made that spectre loom larger.
yeah.
the other day i had something very similar to a panic attack, worrying over the wellbeing of Obama. i think that janie’s idea to try to turn those scared thoughts into some good-vibey, protective shroud is the best that we can do.
dave, i am sure you will agree, because it’s totally rational.
I’m not sure I completely understand the logic behind thinking Obama will be assassinated. Aren’t people who attempt to assassinate presidents usually insane, disturbed individuals for whom the rules of logic do not necessarily apply? It just takes one radical nut to make the attempt, so it seems to me just as likely that Bush (or any other president) would’ve been assassinated. Plus, Bush probably would be targeted by much more organized fundamentalist-terrorist types (and isn’t he one of the most reviled presidents ever, with the lowest approval ratings in the history of polling?).
Besides, assassinations seem like such unpredictable occurrences, like school shootings–not governed by the rules of us normal folks. I mean, Hinckley was trying to impress Jodie Foster; and then there was that guy who just fired a bunch of shots through the White House fence trying to maybe get lucky and hit Clinton. These are usually individuals, acting alone–generally incompetent, disturbed individuals. I bet, for every president, there are thousands of people who would like to see him (or, one day, her) dead. And, besides Clinton and Reagan, there have been attempts on George Jr., George Sr., Ford (2), Nixon (2), etc., etc.
So, what makes Obama’s would-be killer/s more likely to be successful? Is it simply that he’ll have more people gunning for him? Or that the types that will target him will be better killers?
Actually, what makes Obama different, quite simply, is that we really really don’t want him to be harmed; therefore, we think he will be. To me, this “impending sense of dread and doom” seems more a product of liberals’ inability to believe that we could be fortunate enough to have even a decent, much less a spectacular, president–so the fact that he is young, charismatic, smart, not like the other guy, and has a good chance of winning, is too much for us. We want Obama to be Kennedy; and, of course, because Kennedy was assassinated in (or before) his prime, we can’t help but think Obama will be too. We just don’t feel lucky or deserving enough to actually have someone inspiring, tolerant, judicious… (but, of course, we’ve been burned before, so I have some of this dread, too, though it has more to do with McCain winning.).
Great, now I’m going to be on some FBI or Homeland Security list, aren’t I?
Sure, some small number of nuts hates every president and wants to kill him/her. And maybe we’re worrying too much. But I think the Obama assassination fear is understandable and valid, based in the JFK and RFK experience that young, progressive, shake-things-up leaders are in danger (as inaccurate as that is in the case of JFK) and especially in the horrific experience of so many black leaders being targeted. White racists have long been America’s most successful home-grown terrorists.
I will add Obama to my list of good-vibe recipients. And you too, Trix.
It is interesting, Swells, that none of the commenters mentioned any potential connection between Obama and RFK — yet many thought Hillary made that connection in late May, when discussing why she would stay in the race — a “very strange and tasteless” comment.
And this doom and gloom feeling is specifically tied to Obama’s race. I don’t feel an “inability to believe that we could be fortunate enough to have even a decent, much less a spectacular, president” — I thought we had that in ’92 and didn’t fear for Clinton’s safety. Didn’t cross my mind much. What does seem to good to be true is that a black man could become president.
Dave: Yes, but most black leaders haven’t had Secret Service protection, either. My point is that all presidents and presidential candidates are likely assassination targets, and what makes Obama different is that many of us actually care very very much that he becomes and remains president (as term limits permit, of course). Nobody worries too much about Bush being assassinated (even though there was a movie about it) because, well, I won’t even finish that particular thought in a public forum like this…
Anyway, this whole Obama-assassination concept, though, seems also wholly a part of the recent narrative of Barack-as-messiah, which Ruben alluded to in a comment in defense of Hillary a while back. (Of course, our guy, because he’s so great, is going to piss off all of the ignorant, “bitter,” gun-toting nuts…)
I say this as an Obama supporter, btw.
Gale, are you saying, then, that Clinton was a “spectacular” or merely a “decent” president? Obama seems like he could, potentially, be spectacular. Clinton, though? Spectacular?
i guess part of my fear comes from the conspiracy-theorist in me. i am willing to seriously consider the possibility that both JFK and MLK were not in fact assisinated by some random nutjob but that there were more organized, darker forces at work that just couldn’t tolerate the progressive influence of these visionary men.
after the crazee shit that the bush/cheney white house pulled with the war, the wire tapping, the don’t get me started, i have every confidence that there are people out there who continue to be very powerful regardless of who is in the white house who would stop at nothing to see their agendas fulfilled.
long live obama
fyi, on a less morbid note, i found this Politico article a very satisfying read, especially since my main fear is that Obama is simply too smart, too liberal, and, well, too good to actually get elected.
I totally agree with Trixie’s last comment and also Gale, #14–I never feared for Clinton (and I do think he was potentially spectacular in the very start before he betrayed us). Jeremy, the difference I perceive in Obama’s danger vs someone like McCain’s is a very prejudiced one, but it just seems to me that, to generalize, the most radical and violent types come from the extreme right, and that’s exactly why GWB is still alive: the people who hate him most are still too liberal to believe in doing what it would take to get rid of him. I say that will full recognition of how naive that comment is in light of 9/11, btw, but to echo Tremain’s earlier sentiments on Obama, it’s just a gut feeling. And Gale’s link to the Secret Service lapse is so chilling and validates every conspiracy theory I have about JFK, RFK, MLK, 9/11 and the rest. I just don’t think a black liberal leader is safe in this racist and right-wing country, even in 2008.
Fine, believe the hacks at the Politico but don’t believe me.
I also want to acknowledge first, the typo in my comment (“will” s/b “with”) and also the fact that I sound like a complete paranoid nut job. Understood. Accepted. Admitted.
But this fear of Obama getting shot is not simply an issue of the notion that “a president may be shot (yes, often by nut jobs)” but is firmly rooted in race, and we live in a a country with a “virulent racist past that we’ve never acknowledged,” as a friend of mine says. She goes on to say, eloquently, “and those crackers shoot folks. Really.”
Yes, swells, but I think your comment illustrates my point–that this is a “gut feeling” says more about us, our fears, our inability to really “hope,” than it does about the reality of the situation, the actual likelihood of an Obama assassination. It also says a lot about our view of, perhaps even or disdain for, our own “racist and right-wing country, even in 2008,” despite the fact that our country is far less racist or right-wing as it was in 1963 or even 1968. But maybe I’m just being naive.
And, really, I’m not saying that this scenario isn’t possible (in fact, it seems likely that every president will be the target of an assassination attempt at some point), but I think it’s worth exploring where this “gut feeling” actually comes from.
And to Jeremy #16 — did I think Clinton was gonna be spectacular? In that fall of ’91, I was giddy at the prospect of: welfare reform, gays in the military, and national health care. I was puffed up with hope. I feel the same way about Obama, but even giddier given the color of his skin.
And, Gale, I agree that we haven’t fully come to grips with our country’s racist past, but to say that we’ve “never acknowledged” it?
I find the comparison between Obama and RFK to be interesting. From one perspective, the two are incredibly similar: youth support, populism, and the backdrop of an unpopular war.
But in some very real ways, the two are polar opposites. And I’m not just talking about the obvious: one was a son of privilege. If we play the game and imagine Obama’s assassination, we imagine a gun-toting racist, who would kill Obama because he couldn’t stand the idea of a black president. But Sirhan Sirhan (a minority gentleman) killed RFK because of his (RFK’s) stance on Israel – that he supported the American backing of Israel in the Six-Days War. So one would be an internally (politically speaking) motivated assassination, and one was an assassination based on American foreign policy.
What would it mean to our imagined narrative if Obama were assassinated for his support of Israel? Would he become the same type of martyr as if we imagine him as the victim of racism?
And I’m sorry to be nit-picky but, Clinton created his own problems with congress when he got NAFTA passes with the help of Republicans and by turning his back on promises that he made while on the campaign trail (namely that he wouldn’t pass NAFTA without addressing environmental and labor concerns).
Godfree my man: I don’t mean to get all semantic but I have trouble referring to Sirhan Sirhan as “gentleman” or, what it also implies, a gentle man.
And I did admit that Clinton only seemed spectacular, for a year or so. He did betray us, and how.
…My criticisms of Clinton are compounded by the fact that I was one of millions who were partying in the street on that magical night of his election.
Yes, swells, but I think your comment illustrates my point–that this is a “gut feeling” says more about us, our fears, our inability to really “hope,” than it does about the reality of the situation, the actual likelihood of an Obama assassination. It also says a lot about our view of, perhaps even or disdain for, our own “racist and right-wing country, even in 2008,” despite the fact that our country is far less racist or right-wing as it was in 1963 or even 1968. But maybe I’m just being naive.
Jeremy: though I don’t think our country is far less racist or right-wing now than then (just more couched about it), I think the rest of this comment is maybe more salient than anything else in this discussion–maybe it’s all more about our own loss of hope and pride than any reality. And maybe that’s the saddest thing of all?
Dear Swells (who is sitting approximately 4 feet to my right, which makes this funny to me), I used “gentleman” as a demarcation of his humanity, and nothing more. I don’t think of him Sirhan Sirhan as a monster, just a mentally ill man with a grudge against American support of Israel and who got his hands on a gun.
Maybe Dave should call us out more often for not commenting enough…
hey i think the secret service took out my last comment!
i’m serious!
Somewhat along those lines, I’m outta here for a week and a half. Have fun without me, peeps.
oh. nevermind.
but boy howdy did we ever comment the crap outta this one!
go, team!
Maybe we should rename it “My Left Wing Hand.”
Bye, Dave! Have fun, wherever you’re going! And be happy… we did comment the crap outta this one. Good job, Gale, for bringing up such a hot topic.
I love the phrase “Hot Topic”! It’s like we’re on The View!
Hm, so I guess you guys are talkin bout 1992, not 1996 — and that certainly was the more logical year to be excited and euphoric about Clinton being elected, for any number of reasons. But I totally don’t remember feeling that way in 92 — I felt like Good riddance to the Reagan-Bush (how little I knew!) years, but I didn’t really hold out much hope that Clinton would improve things. Whereas in 96, when he had shown himself already to be an unreliable progressive, it just moved me to tears to see him re-elected. Wonder what’s up with that.
great point by scott about the murder of RFK and the ways we create our martyrs.
(Hey now that Dave’s out of town I guess we can trash the place?)
I guess. What color paint will you use?
Totally agree — this is a great point: What would it mean to our imagined narrative if Obama were assassinated for his support of Israel? Would he become the same type of martyr as if we imagine him as the victim of racism?
And to #25 — yes, slavery is a part of history classes. But I think that’s why Obama’s speech (which Dave wrote about, calling it “The Speech“) was so incredible, because no one has given such a high profile speech on race.