Back in late 2009 Washington, DC was still showing its submissions from that year’s DC Fotoweek, a photo festival which that year included an Obamacentric display at one locale. The shots seen here are all from Crystal City, and focused mainly on the inauguration. The predominant theme was all of the hopey changey optimism that was associated with the election of President Obama, and the celebration around his inauguration. Given our president’s Flight of Icarus from the top of the world to his current course of crash and burn, some of these Fotoweek pictures help explain both.
There is no need to recap the Obama presidency so far, but a few of these pictures sum up his term pretty well.
The pictures range from soft, happy brushstrokes
To hopey and happy
To a little bit creepy
Like the rest of the Obama shots, I thought all of the pics were well done. Yes, the one shot of Palin focuses on her boots to reinforce liberals’ “Caribou Barbie” image of her, it’s more respectful than anything I’ve heard come from the left when it comes to Palin. Baby steps, baby steps.
But it was one shot in particular that caught my eye
If the pic isn’t showing up clearly, the sign the woman has says “I have a dream”, and shows Bush and Cheney behind bars. Sadly, this also sums up the mentality of the left for eight years, and gives insight as to why so many are so unhappy with our president. So many lefties knew that they hated Bush and all of his policies, but never offered any solutions. Closing Guantanamo Bay sounded great to lefties, but what did you think was going to happen to all of the suspected terrorists held there? And what was our policy going to be moving forward? While we may not like some of the things that our leaders have to do to protect us, it doesn’t take away their necessity. Lefties were so blinded by their hatred that clear thought and realistic solutions never entered their minds. They were too busy celebrating this new hopey changey era of good feelings to ruin the celebration with pesky things like questions.
And to be honest, I don’t begrudge the liberals their celebration. The left didn’t have a lot to be happy about over the previous eight years. Unless you count minor things like a growing economy, low unemployment, and no major terrorist attacks after 9/11, of course. And they haven’t had a lot to celebrate since that time, either. No need to go back and harp on the many failures of this administration and Congress since then. No, wait, that actually is the point. America was so willing to allow itself to be charmed by Candidate Obama that they never bothered to notice we were about to elect a perfect embodiment of style without substance. How could this have happened?
Note: I try to avoid profanity in my writing with the occasional self-censoring asterisks, as I’ve come to realize that swearing tends to bring attention to the profanity rather than the point being made. Over the years I’ve mostly purged my North Jersey potty mouth, although a few beers and an hour or two of watching my beloved Philadelphia Eagles continue to produce some very colorful strings of profanity from me. That said, the next paragraph contains some foul language, so if it offends skip ahead of the italics to the following paragraph.
It’s never a good idea to stick your head up somebody’s ass. Eventually you face the reality that nobody’s shit tastes like ice cream. And when you wake up and pull your head out you come to realize that you’ve only swallowed a load of shit. And the farther up you stuck your head up that ass and the longer you leave it in, the more shit you end up swallowing.
So how could this have happened? If you voted for Obama you have nobody to blame but yourself. I’ve written previously about the right’s share of the blame in our country’s current leadership, but we at least managed low expectations. Living in DC, I remember the feeling around town. Among conservatives there was a very guarded hope that electing a man with little experience and radicals in his past might somehow work. But among the left? There was a certain electricity in the air. People seemed happier, milling about, some proudly wearing their creepy baubles to proclaim their cult membership (Obama buttons, t-shirts, hats, handbags, etc). Then the messiah they had elected actually had to do something he had never been asked to do before – do his job; lead and take responsibility. And the results have been predictable. Again, how did so many fall for this act?
Looking back on my adult life and thinking back on the times when I was unhappiest there were some times where the cause was completely beyond my control. And there are other times where my situation was mainly a product of bad decisions that I made. In some cases it was the immediate consequence of my decision, and other times it was a case of not thinking through my choices or looking at where my decisions would lead me. It’s easy to say looking back that I would have done differently through the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. I’m sure that I would have made many of the same bad decisions, but had I thought more about where they would lead me or paid closer attention to various signs I probably would have gotten out of those situations a lot sooner, or been less surprised at their eventual outcomes.
Disaffection for all of you leftist with Obama is no different. While you were laughing at how the press went dumpster diving into Joe The Plumber’s personal life, you completely ignored that then Senator Obama’s “Spread the wealth” comment should have been a clear warning that you were supporting someone who is economically illiterate. You had a great time poking fun at how the press proved to you that Sarah Palin was too stupid and too inexperienced to be Vice President, and you demonstrated how you value those qualities by voting for a VP whose mouth is an endless stream of stupidity and a President who had never had any kind of leadership role (much less any real job) in is life. You loved Obama’s claims that all laws would be negotiated on C-Span and then posted online for at least five days for the public to view, when nothing in his past suggested any history of doing that. You chose to believe that Obama would usher in a new kind of bipartisan culture of bringing people together, when his personal history of winning elections consisted of getting opponents thrown off of the ballot or having sealed divorce records of his opponent unsealed just prior to his election dates, that is when Obama wasn’t outright accepting illegal campaign contributions from foreigners suggested he was nothing but a typical Chicago politician. And of course, you all cackled with hateful delight as the press was busy raping Sarah Palin’s family in print while you couldn’t even be bothered to read a biography that would have shown you you were supporting someone whose background evolved from drug using punk to a man whose political career was spent influenced by Marxists and anti-Americans. On that same note, you found the details of a 14 year old girl’s sex life more important than the fact that this self proclaimed genius you fell in love with had no school transcripts, publications, or any student, professors, or peers who could vouch for this brilliance you mindlessly accepted. For that matter, you chose to not ask how someone who in his own biography admitted to spending his last two years of high school in a drug induced haze somehow got accepted to Occidental college. You also ignored an autobiography riddled with incorrect facts, and still accept as objective the sycophantic press that refused to vet this candidate’s past.
Are you among the many who have fallen out of love with Obama? Are you somehow surprised that the world didn’t magically transform into the hopey changey paradise you were promised? I have something painful to tell you. It’s not Sarah Palin’s fault. It’s not John Boehner’s fault. It’s not Citigroup’s fault. It’s not the Supreme Court’s fault. It’s not the Tea Party’s fault. It’s not the one percent’s fault. And for the love of God, please get it through your head that your unhappiness is not George Bush’s fault. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Next time do your homework. Asking the tough questions up front means a lot less heartache down the road. You might not like the answers, but unfortunately for you reality has a very anti-left wing bias.
I know that the leftists out there can’t like any of what I just said, but to quote one of the greatest orators in the history of humanity, “They should be thanking me.”
I’ll close out with my favorite quote from the movie “Batman: The Dark Knight” that I’ve used before to sum up President Obama. The best line came not from The Joker, or Batman, or even Alfred or Detective Gordon. No, the best quote came from The Scarecrow, as one of the main villains from the previous movie returned for a brief appearance, and it reminds me of Obama’s promise to “fundamentally change” this country just before the 2008 election. While meeting with a drug dealer who was unhappy about the painful side effects the hallucinogens that The Scarecrow had made for him, the dealer showed the villain one of his customers, lying on the ground and shouting terrified gibberish as a result of Scarecrow’s drugs. The Scarecrow calmly said, “Buyer beware. I told you my compound would take you places. I never said they’d be places you wanted to go.” Hope and change indeed.
Cross posted from Brother Bob’s Blog
