Reflections of a stormy petrel

Curiously enough, at the start I disliked his supporters a lot more than I did him. He struck me as a good and interesting candidate, although I made it clear that if I were American I'd have voted McCain. What I hated was the mean-minded spirit of triumphalism, the gambler obsession of betting on "hope", the real contempt for opponents and the "whatever can go wrong?" self-blinding - the implication that everything must work out just right just because a nice person had replaced that nasty Mr.Bush. I was actually banned and deleted from tree_and_leaf for pointing out the similarities with 1997 and a certain Mr.Blair - not, one would think, the most offensive thing I had ever said. The Obama supporters not only were glad, they were vindictive and out to squash opposition; and the fact that it was tree_and_leaf, of all people, who showed that spirit to such an extent, really showed just how far the poison had spread. tree_and_leaf likes to cultivate a courteus and tolerant image, but that autumn day, she was just as brutal as all the others.

So, yes, believe it or not, I felt Obama himself was not as bad as that. So, yes, he has actually been a bit of a disappointment, in the sense that all my worst fears rather than my hopes have come true. (As I told the wonderful ashesofautumn, who is Jewish, I hoped all my fears about Israel would prove wrong. Well, guess what?) But the thing is that the worst of what has been happening is not just bad morality but incompetent politics. The saga of the health reform is the most atrociously mismanaged political campaign I have ever seen, with Obama losing a certain victory mainly because he would insist on a stupid little pro-abortion bit and lie about it. During the elections, he had shown an almost preternatural ability to split possibly dangerous combinations and defang potential enemies; in the matter of the health reform, he has made mistakes that a child would avoid. Is there a politician in the house?