I waited more than 12 hours to see if someone (JedL?) would post this to the front page, or even just diary it; seeing none yet, I am going to bravely try, yet again, to keep a diary up for at least a couple of hours :-)
President Obama's address to the Abraham Lincoln Association banquet assembly last night was such pure genius at so many levels, that I hesitate to even attempt a description of it. But being that intrepid fool...
First, there was the upfront humor on two different topics -- one about a very serious issue (his Presidency in these perilous times and the sheer audacity of it, strictly only alluded to via Lincoln's own response to someone questioning him) and another about the farce that was the Gregg "candidacy". Both were done so amazingly gently, and with such wry humor and deep relish, that I am almost jealous for about the first time in my life :-) See and enjoy it first, before I recap the more serious thrust of his speech:
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/...
See what I mean? The way in which he weaves together Lincoln, his own red-state/blue-state theme, the suicidal intransigence of the current GOP, the wrong-headedness of knee-jerk anti-Governmentism of these neo-Reaganites, the urgency and seriousness of the moment, the opportunity therein, and so many other things, is nothing short of genius. All this done without naming names or even parties! Words are so inadequate to describe his unerring knack of making (sensible) people ashamed of their behavior without actually directly saying anything nasty...It must be really hard for his kids :-)
Pause for a moment to enjoy and savor the sheer poetry of his audacity. If you can, help him in this monumental endeavor by not sweating the little things and always keeping the eye on the ball. (The ball is the reset button.) People who keep knocking him as naive just do not get the level at which he is operating. He is not just looking at the short term -- he is attempting nothing less than pressing the reset button on the American democratic space.
[I am not saying there is not valid space to criticize his actions/policies on particulars, but permanent vapors and drama-queenism on every little thing just saps the sheer beauty of the moment and the (political) genius of the man we elected. These are rare moments in history, we are living in it and were partly responsible for it -- to lose sight of that fact is to miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.]