to, for, and from ala
∞
One time—this was years before, his sons were young, in grade school—Joe was sitting around with his pals in Wilmington, a weekend, somebody's backyard.
Joe said: “Where’s your kid going to college?”
One friend said: “Ah, there’s a lotta good schools now.”
“Lemme tell you guys something,” Joe said. And he wasn’t just shooting the shit. He had the clench in his jaw.
“There’s a river of power that flows through this country . . . ”
His buddies rolled their eyes, but Joe acted like he didn’t see.
“Some people—most people—don’t even know the river is there. But it’s there.
“Some people know about the river, but they can’t get in . . . they only stand at the edge.
“And some people, a few, get to swim in the river. All the time. They get to swim their whole lives—anywhere they want to go—always in the river of power.
“And that river,” Joe said, “flows from the Ivy League.”
—Joe Biden, Syracuse Law, ‘68; today vice-president to Barack Obama, Harvard Law, ’91; in Richard Ben Cramer’s What It Takes
To the surprise of very few, Joe Biden and Barack Obama last Thursday night accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination for vice president, and president, respectively.
Biden’s name was placed in nomination by his eldest son, Beau, currently Attorney General for the state of Delaware. And in Biden’s speech he was introduced by his wife Jill.
Jill is Biden’s second wife. His first wife, Neilia, was killed in an automobile accident, together with their young daughter, on December 18, 1972. Just weeks after Biden was first elected to the United States Senate, at age 29.
For more than three decades thereafter, Biden traveled each night, by train or by car—somehow, anyhow—from Washington DC, to his home in Delaware. To be with his young sons, and, in the course of things, his second wife, Jill.
For he had been shown, and understood, what it is that is truly important.
Which is why Biden began his address Thursday evening with an expression of love for his wife, his lover, Jill.
So warm and heartfelt, Biden’s words, that even the volatile, and indeed occasionally werewolfian Michelle Malkin, who has heretofore not said a positive word about any Democrat in this millennium, inscribed: “Well, that was nice. Joe Biden's love of his wife Jill is genuine and touching.”
And folks, I tell you what: it was worth the trip. To hear my wife say, what I’ve never heard her say before: she’s always loved me.
If that’s the case, why in the heck did it take five times of asking you?
And that’s true. Five times.
I don’t know what I would have done, kiddo, had you, on that fifth time, said no.
I love you.
You’re the love of my life, and the life of my love.
In much more mundane matters, Biden Thursday night also opined that, from the view of the “ringside seat” he has occupied for the past four years, it would probably be a good idea for the American people to re-elect Barack Obama as president.
Fulsome was Biden, from his ringside seat, in his Obama praise:
—“I got to see firsthand what drove this man: his profound concern for the average American.”
—”One of the things I learned about Barack, was the enormity of his heart.”
—”Bravery resides in the heart of Barack Obama, and time and time again I witnessed him summon it. This man has courage in his soul, compassion in his heart, and a spine of steel.”
—”A strong president, with a steady hand, and with the judgement and vision to see us through.”
—”He has never wavered; he never, never backs down; he always steps up; and he always asks, in every one of those critical meetings, the same fundamental question. ‘How is this going to affect the average American?’ “How is this going to affect people’s lives?’ That’s what’s inside this man. That’s what makes him tick. That’s who he is.”
—”Conviction! Resolve! Barack Obama! That’s what saved the American auto industry! Conviction! Resolve! Barack Obama!”
Biden also had some zingers for the
defeated Republican candidates, the
ass-backwards Mitt Robotney, and his Pinocchio play-toy, Ayn Ryan.
These included:
—”I found it fascinating last week, when Governor Romney said that, as President, he’d take a jobs tour. Well, with all his support for outsourcing, it’s going to have to be a foreign trip.”
—“We promote the private sector, not the public sector.”
—”Folks, the Bain way may bring your firm the highest profits. But it’s not the way to lead your country from its highest office.”
The centerpiece of Biden’s speech concerned “what you’ve heard me say the last six months: Osama bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive.”
Biden first frenzied through the unbearable pressures brought to bear upon Obama, pressures to drive a stake through the heart of the American auto industry, pressures which the president successfully resisted.
And then Biden exulted in the execution of Osama bin Laden.
Look: Barack understood that the search for bin Laden was about a lot more than taking a monstrous leader off the battlefield. It was about so much more than that. It was about righting, an unspeakable wrong. It was about, it, literally, it was about, it was about healing an unbearable wound, nearly an unbearable wound, in America’s heart. And he also knew, he also knew the message we had to send around the world: if you attack, innocent Americans, we will follow you, to the end of the earth.
Most of all, President Obama had an unyielding faith in the capacity and the capability of our special forces. Literally the finest warriors in the history of the world. The finest warriors in the history of the world.
Biden did not mention that these “warriors” were
crazed-beyond-control “God and Country” freakazoid fanatics brains broken absolutely indistinguishable from Al Qaeda jihadists.
Those assembled, on this Convention night, upon hearing from Biden that bin Laden was again dead, immediately descended, knuckles dragging, into a psychotic tulip mania, in which they loudly, robotically chanted “USA! USA! USA!”
A moment of true Kurtzian horror was narrowly averted, when those assembled declined to then move into a rousing rendition of that hatpin-through-the-frontal-lobe anthem: “God Bless The USA.”
Biden, fading out, got snuffled up when he referenced “the 6,473 fallen angels, and the 49,746 wounded,” whom, as the histories will record, died in vain, in Iraq and Afghanistan, for no Sane reason whatsoever.
Michelle Obama introduced her husband in terms which baldly traced, in descending order of importance, his worth as a human being on this planet: “the love of my life, the father of our two girls, and President of The United States.”
That he is the love of her life, that he is the father of their two girls . . . these Mean Something.
That he is also, for a time, ruler of some transient dirt-patch—that means . . . nothing.
Those who had seen Barack Obama at the Democratic National Conventions of 2004 and 2008, understood that, from his speech at the Democratic National Convention of 2012, Barack Obama no longer wants to be president.
heigh-ho
god’s my life
stolen hence
and left me asleep
As did Biden, Obama began his speech in the way that only and really matters: with and in his love.
Michelle: I love you so much
A few nights ago, everybody was reminded, just what a lucky man I am.
Malia, and Sasha: we are so proud of you.
And yes. You do have to go to school in the morning.
Obama then communicated that while he no longer really wished to be president, the continuation of his presidency was necessary in order to ensure that ur-humans out of the fourth century would not be allowed to drag knuckles into the White House.
It's sort of a Moses deal. Everybody thought that simply getting out from under Pharaoh (George II) would be the big wazoo. They didn't envision the glumness of wandering around in the desert for freaking years, waiting on manna.
Kind of a drag.
But Obama, like Moses, can't run shrieking for the hills. That would be easy—tempting, sure—but an abdication.
So, as he said Thursday night, he and, we, must trod "the path." Even though it's long. And endless. And boring.
No wonder his speech Thursday night was flat, and flaccid, and not who he is.
Because he is black man, Barack Obama’s soul and spirit, as president, has always been constrained. He cannot, ever, be who he truly is.
the eye of man hath not heard
the ear of man hath not seen
man’s hand is not able to taste
his tongue to conceive
nor his heart to report
what my dream was
The best and purest and truest expression of Barack Obama as president, arrived not on this tired Thursday night, but at the close of a December 2010
press conference.
In which he said:
This notion that somehow we are willing to compromise too much: reminds me of the debate that we had during health care.
So I pass a signature piece of legislation, where we finally get health care for all Americans.
Something that Democrats had been fighting for, for a hundred years.
But because there was a provision in there that they didn’t get, that would have affected maybe a couple of million people, even though we got health insurance for 30 million people, and the potential for lower premiums for 100 million people—that, somehow, was a sign of weakness and compromise.
Now, if that’s the standard by which we are measuring success, or core principles, then let’s face it.
We will never get anything done.
People will have the satisfaction of having a purist position.
And no victories for the American people.
And we will be able to feel good about ourselves, and sanctimonious about how pure our intentions are, and how tough we are.
And in the meantime, the American people are still seeing themselves not able to get health insurance because of preexisting conditions, or not being able to pay their bills because their unemployment insurance ran out.
That can’t be the measure of how we think about our public service. That can’t be the measure of what it means to be a Democrat.
This is a big, diverse country.
Not everybody agrees with us.
I know that shocks people.
The New York Times editorial page does not permeate across all of America.
Neither does The Wall Street Journal editorial page.
Most Americans, they’re just trying to figure out how to go about their lives, and how can we make sure that our elected officials are looking out for us.
And that means, because it’s a big, diverse country, and people have a lot of complicated positions, it means that in order to get stuff done, we’re going to compromise.
This is why FDR, when he started Social Security, it only affected widows and orphans.
You, did not qualify.
And yet now it is something that really helps a lot of people.
When Medicare was started, it was a small program.
It grew.
Under the criteria that you just set out, each of those were betrayals of some abstract ideal.
This country was founded on compromise.
I couldn’t go through the front door, at this country’s founding.
And if we were really thinking about ideal positions, we wouldn’t have a union.
So my job is to make sure that we have a North Star out there.
And at any given juncture, there are going to be times where my preferred option, what I am absolutely positive is right, I can’t get done.
And so then my question is: does it make sense for me to tack a little bit this way or tack a little bit that way, because I’m keeping my eye on the long term and the long fight—not my day-to-day news cycle, but where am I going over the long term?
And I don’t think there’s a single Democrat out there, who if they looked at where we started when I came into office, and look at where we are now, would say that somehow we have not moved in the direction that I promised.
Take a tally. Look at what I promised during the campaign.
There’s not a single thing that I’ve said that I would do, that I have not either done or tried to do.
And if I haven’t gotten it done yet, I’m still trying to do it.
And so the—to my Democratic friends, what I’d suggest is, let’s make sure that we understand this is a long game.
“North Star” Barack Obama is, at heart, “I’ve Been To The Mountaintop” Martin Luther King.
Allowed, this time, through star-crossed time-further ascendency, into the presidency.
And permitted to live there long enough, to sprout gray hair.
It is such a gift. To white people. If they could only understand it. That all this ageless striving and energy, has now been gifted onto them.
Ageless striving and energy, that, still, in these times, cannot be fully understood by people who are not black (or brown, or red, or yellow), because still, to this day, even with a black man in the White House (forced to convene an outrageous obscenity of an unprecedented press conference, in which he was forced to proffer his birth certificate: for a black man, he can't, possibly, truly, really be qualified, to be a real president), people born blessed with white skin do not understand that, if you're born other than blessed with white skin, soon as you stick your head up, become a tall poppy, crazed fuckwads blow in on the four winds, and sail in on the seven seas, to lop your head right off.
People who face this shit every day of their fucking lives learn to think in terms of "a long game." In terms of a "North Star." In terms of vision-questing up to the mountaintop. And seeing over. But knowing you'll never, ever, get there yourself. Not in this lifetime.
Because that's just the way it is.
Everybody ages in the presidency. But Barack Obama has aged like a motherfucker. People who remember Jackie Robinson, whose heart blew right out of his chest at age 53—they know why this is.
Too bad not many people remember Jackie Robinson. Or know what he means.
Barack Obama has disappointed a lot of people.
Hell, he's disappointed everybody.
Before he was ever elected president, I wrote on this site that he would disappoint me.
That's just the way it is.
As he explicitly stated last Thursday night, he's even disappointed himself.
Everybody who on this planet is a body, eventually disappoints everybody, disappoints even themselves.
That's just the way it is.
Because I'm a really old fart, and because from time to time I'm compelled to dip into history, I remember what most people on this site do not: that even a sainted being like Martin Luther King, in his time, disappointed people from balm to gilead. He was a Tom, an incrementalist, a timid toady, he wouldn't get with the struggle, he wasn't a truly righteous black man. Old and in the way; behind the times; old man, look at your life, you're a freaking skid mark.
"Fortunately" for him, he got shot in the head. And so people who were screaming at him, even the day before, till their lips bled, trampled each other the next day to place a halo upon his head.
Barack Obama, praise jeebus, still has head intact. So he has no such "luck."
But Obama's "long game," his "North Star"—make no mistake—is of the very same stuff as the "mountaintop" invoked by the Reverend King, just hours before that flawed, decent man, ceased to breathe.
I don't know what will happen now.
We've got some difficult days ahead.
But it really doesn't matter with me now.
Because I've been to the mountaintop.
And I don't mind.
Like anybody I would like to live.
A long life.
Longevity has its place.
But I'm not concerned about that now.
I just want to do god's will.
And he's allowed me to go up to the mountain.
And I've looked over.
And I've seen the promised land.
I may not get there with you.
But I want you to know, tonight, that we as a people, will get to the promised land.
So I'm happy tonight.
I'm not worried about anything.
I'm not fearing any man.
Fearing no man. Because he is more than a man. Because he is subsumed in
love.