Flashbacks to November 2008, a moment to regain our perspective

In honor of the 4th of July holiday, and because I don’t feel like writing anything today, the FM site presents these flashbacks: 

1. “Fafblog interviews John McCain“, posted at Fafblog, 2 November 2009
2. A victory notice of Obama’s accension, posted at Fafblog, 5 November 2009
3. Which of our two political parties is better — a look at their distinguishing features

Excerpts

(1)  “Fafblog interviews John McCain“, posted at Fafblog, 2 November 2009

FAFBLOG: First of all I want to say thank you, John McCain, for choosing to give your last major interview before the election right here on our little blog! … Now let’s get right down to it. Why should you be president?

MCCAIN: … Because I know the problems Americans are going through right now. The American people are angry, my friends. They’re hurt. They’ve been beaten by their captors for five and a half years. And they need a leader who’s willing to stop federal tax dollars from going to research harbor seal DNA.

FB: We might lose our jobs and we might lose our homes and we might have to sell our youngest, weakest children to black market organ scavengers for a cardboard box and a can of refried beans, but we’ll always be safe in the knowledge that our taxes aren’t going to further our understanding of marine biology.

MCCAIN: Oh, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg, my friends. Do you realize that federal earmarks last year directed literally thousands of your tax dollars to children’s hospitals? Think about that now! Hospitals! For children!

FB: Now look John McCain, everybody wantsto shut down children’s hospitals, but how’re you really gonna do it what with all the Washington gridlock and the Beltway infighting and the fatcat lobbyists from Big Children? I mean Ronald Reagan promised us he’d destroy the government and twenty years later we’re still stuck with a functioning public sewage system.

MCCAIN: Look, my friends, I can do this. I know how to balance budgets. I know how to win wars. I’ve been pretending to do it for thirty-five years. …

FB: That’s just the kind of mavericky bipartisan maverickness you used to pass sweeping reforms like the Candyland Preservation Act and McCain-Snuffleupagus! So how much will I personally save once you’ve gotten rid of all these earmarks?

MCCAIN: Literally thousands of thousandths of some fraction of a penny. But look, my friends: it’s not about the money. It’s about the principle. And the principle is that it’s wrong, just wrong, to take money from the American taxpayer and spend it on something, unless that something is a series of massive, ever-expanding foreign wars.

FB: That’s so true. It just burns me up inside when I think about how every dollar we’re just throwing away on medicine for poor people could be spent on something truly valuable, like a hundred year war in Iraq.

MCCAIN: Now, now I want to be clear on something. I hate war, my friends. I hate war … {b}ut this war in Iraq is a necessary war. An honorable war. … And without it Saddam Hussein would be free even now to fly pretend airplanes into our fictional buildings with weapons of mass imagination.

FB: None of us will ever forget that day – that terrible, hypothetical day.

MCCAIN: And right now in Iraq we have a, a wonderful general there, General Petraeus. … And the first thing we have to do is let General Petraeus finish the job of securing Iraq for the Iraqi people, a proud and united people, so that it doesn’t fall into the hands of their enemies, the Iraqi people.

FB: Well that sounds good, John McCain, but how do we really get the Iraqis to stand up for themselves against the Iraqis?

MCCAIN: Oh, we already have, by arming the Iraqis to fight back against the Iraqis and make sure they can live in peace without fear of Iraqis. But if we don’t stay and finish the job Iraq will fall to Iraqi influence, and we cannot allow that, my friends. …

FB: Now there’s some crazy people who say we should negotiate with other countries like Iran and Venezuela before we bomb them. Are these crazy people crazy?

MCCAIN: Absolutely. We cannot dignify these countries by meeting with them, because if we meet with them we give the world the impression that we are willing to meet with them, and that just makes our country look like the kind of country that meets with other countries. And where does that lead, my friends?

FB: Disaster, that’s where! …

(2)  Fafblog’s 5 November announcement of the election result: 

 

“As of last night, Barack Obama has now become for the first time in American history the very first African-American to be elected Jesus.  Now everything will be better forever HOORAAAAAAY!  Except if you’re gay.”

(3)  Excerpt from Politics of the FM site: radical leftist reformer or right-wing iconoclast? (25 February 2009)

One virtue of the FM site is its clear position about the politics of 21st century America: I stand against them. Choosing a party today is like cattle at the stockyards choosing a pen. They (being smarter than us) don’t bother with party identification. They don’t cheer the “left-side” pen: the virtue of its prisoners, the beauty of the fence, the free food. Those in the “right-side” pen don’t wear logos or bumper-stickers, or trumpet their superior intelligence over those in the left pen.

Afterword

Please share your comments by posting below.  Per the FM site’s Comment Policy, please make them brief (250 words max), civil, and relevant to this post.  Or email me at fabmaximus at hotmail dot com (note the spam-protected spelling).

For information about this site see the About page, at the top of the right-side menu bar.

For more information

To read other articles about these things, see the FM reference page on the right side menu bar. Of esp relevance to this topic:

• About America – how can we reform it?
• Obama, his administration and Ameican policies today

Some posts about American politics:

1. What happens to the Republican Party after the election?, 2 November 2008
2. R.I.P., G.O.P. – a well-deserved end, 7 November 2008
3. America gets ready for new leadership (or is it back to the future?), 14 November 2008
4. Conservative reflections about America – starting to use their time in the wilderness to think, 15 November 2008
5. Lilliput or America – who has a better way to choose its leaders?, 19 November 2008
6. Conservatives should look back before attempting to move forward, 5 December 2008
7. About campaigns for high office in America – we always expect a better result from the same process, 17 June 2009

Posts about the election and the McCain-Palin ticket

1. Why McCain will lose the election, 1 July 2008
2. McCain believes we are stupid. Is he correct?, 30 August 2008 — What does choosing Palin say about McCain?  Esp note the intense discussion in the comments.
3. Alaska is near Russia, and Gov Palin’s other foreign policy experience, 1 September 2008
4. It’s is not just McCain who believes we’re dumb – it’s a crowd, 3 September 2008
5. Governor Palin as an archetype for our time, 9 September 2008
6. Before we reignite the cold war, what happened in Georgia?, 12 September 2008 — Notes from Palin’s first interview.
7. Stratfor says that our war in Pakistan grows hotter; Palin seems OK with that, 12 September 2008 — More from the ABC interview.
8. Campaign Update – news from the front, 25 September 2008 — Includes part 1 of Couric’s interview of Palin.
9. Gov Palin speaks about foreign policy, 26 September 2008 — Part 2 of Couric’s interview.
10. What happens to the Republican Party after the election?, 2 November 2008
11. Conservative reflections about America – starting to use their time in the wilderness to think, 15 November 2008
12. Liberal reflections on the causes of the Republicans’ defeat at the polls, 16 November 2008
13. A comment about “turkey-gate”, 23 November 2008