I'm a recovering alcoholic, and I haven't wanted a drink so bad since six year ago New Year's Day, when I finally decided I didn't want to be sick any more and went to AA.
The reason I keep thinking of a shot of tequila, and then another, is the despair I feel, watching the assassination of the president.
Because to me, he feels like a friend. When I read Dreams from my Father, I was astonished at how easy it was to relate to him. And The Audacity of Hope caused me to put down the paperback every few minutes and gaze out the window, delighted that someone had finally given such eloquent pen to so many things I'd been thinking all my life. At last, someone gets it, I thought. Someone understands.
I never in a million years thought this country would elect him president. I simply didn't think this country was good enough to elect a black man named Barack Hussein Obama to the White House, no matter how eloquent.
The night he was elected, my band was playing in Seattle. We waited to start playing until after he gave his acceptance speech. Cheers shook the room. But half an hour later, the bar started to thin out. People were satisfied. He won. Time to go home.
I stayed involved, though. I signed the petitions and donated money now and again and kept up on the blogs. I read Huffpo every day until about three months ago, when the attacks on the president grew too much for me to take.
It was election night all over again. He won. We're done, many said. And they waited for what all Americans wait for. Instant gratification. Jobs, today, never mind that they come last in a recovery. Every wish fulfilled. More movement on gay rights. Matthew Sheppard Hate Crimes bill wasn't enough. End DADT today, even though the pres knows what he does with a pen stroke, someone else can undo, and hopes for a bill (watch the Defense Appropraions Bill this year). Close Gitmo, never mind there's no one to take the prisoners.
Never mind all the successes, the advances on the environment that no Republican would ever have considered, never mind all the money for seniors and students in the ARRA or the ARRA itelf, for that matter, never mind overturning that ghastly ban on federal aid overseas for birth control including abortion. Never mind Lily Ledbetter, never mind the concerted effort for health care reform. He thought he couldn't get the public option, and that meant he'd betrayed us, according to the puzzling logic of the multitudes. Because he was SUPPOSED TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN, dammit.
Now I share my home with a woman who is dying of cancer. All she wants to do is watch Fox. She's dying. I haven't got the heart to change the channel. But I want to throw up. The party is repugnant. The sneering, hateful, smug, self-righteous faces I see gloating over every challenge the pres has faced makes me feel like it's me getting radiated. I don't ever want them back in power. And I am watching my party prepare to hand it back. I suspect it's easier to bitch about what you would do if you had power than actually take responsibility for governing.
I'm watching an entire party of congress gather like a slinking pack of wolves and refuse to govern, refuse to do anything but wait for the opportunity to feast on a fresh corpse, and I'm watching the country hold the president accountable instead of the people actually refusing to govern.
I don't agree with ever decision he's made. This new freeze is puzzling. But I still believe to my soul that the guy we elected is trying to do everything he said he was going to try to do. Studies of his campaign promises bear that out. There's been movement on most of them, delivery on quite a few, and it's early in his term. There have been times when he changed course. That's no surprise. I expected once he was in the White House he'd learn things he hadn't known before. But nothing I've seen to date convinces me he is other than the guy for whom I voted.
I'm horrified and appalled at the way this country has turned on him. I blame the White House itself, somewhat. Messaging has been poor. When he changes course, he needs to tell us why. But the only president I've ever had that I truly believed shared my values is being assassinated before my eyes. A lot of the people with their hands on the knife are on my own team. And I don't even understand why. ( I have no doubt plenty of Kossacks will shortly enlighten me).
I'm not going to drink. That's like taking poison and hoping it kills someone else. I'm getting active with OFA. I'm going to work my ass off to hang onto congress as best we can. I called 50 people in Massachusetts for Coakley. Failure sucked, but I'm not done. I'll do it all summer. I'm going to a watch party for the State of the Union tomorrow. At least for the evening I won't feel so much like some antebellum Quaker in Mississippi. There will be others like me there. I hope there's others like me here, too.