According to the Republican Party, Sarah Palin cost John McCain the 2008 presidential election. According to anyone who pays attention to the news outside of election years, the Republican Party cost John McCain the election.
It's all a matter of which talking heads a person listens to. Palin was a problem to be sure, but the bigger problem was the Republican Party advisers who ran McCain's campaign like it was 2004.
And now it's over, and the Republicans need a scapegoat. They won't blame themselves, so Moosebane takes the heat.
Enough. The election is over, and election coverage has retreated to its evil little den for another three years, where it will hibernate like a diseased groundhog. We have bigger fish to fry.
Post-election, many are waiting for the accolades for America's progressive choice to die down so that we can either squander another opportunity or make this country great again. Interesting to see such a momentous occasion reduced to such a simple choice, isn't it?
This election has been a lot like 9/11. Once again, although for vastly different reasons, we have the support of pretty much the entire world behind us. If this opportunity is squandered then Barack Obama will have more in common with President George W. Bush than a job.
Things are different now though. The world is wary of American activity and we don't have the might we had when W. was untested. To that end, an extension of the American hand is in order.
What we need is for the rest of the world to take that proffered hand. Thomas Friedman wrote in his most recent editorial that the only way Obama's lofty goals for lasting global peace and prosperity can be achieved is through global cooperation: economic, diplomatic and military.
Today we are interconnected to an extent the average person has a hard time fathoming. Gone are the days when America could write its own destiny, regardless of world opinion. The potential of President-Elect Obama is for America, all of America, to take its place at this new round table that the modern world has created.
If we continue to rest on the laurels and ideals of the 1950s, we will fall. We've elected a black man to the highest office of the land; isn't it time we applied the concept of equality to the rest of the globe, too? The world is flat.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
