Penny, unfortunately, in the good times or the bad, the media rarely seem to serve its audience to their best.

President-elect Barack Hussein Obama hasn’t been challenged and covered the way the McCain ticket was, and now he’s won, the media have been overcome by the history, to not do their job, lost in the symbolism.

For the first day or two, they shouldn’t, but after that, will they give him a pass, or will they drill away at the character as they did at the end of Bush’s (and blair’s) or Clinton’s regime (-Obama says he’ boring).

The world has to judge not the potential, or the words, but by the acts of the man.

Nothing changed in reality on the 4th of November, just the potential that it might.

Kind regards,

Shakir Razak

Representing the other side of the coin, I got harassed, and almost attacked, on the train by an old white guy who was obviously disappointed McCain was losing and thought the country was going to hell as a result. I wasn’t wearing anything that made my political leanings obvious, nor was I talking about my political leanings to him or anyone else. I had to call the train operator to get him pulled off the car. Crazy as he undoubtedly was (and still is, no doubt), he reflects the feelings of a lot of people, some of whom have actually uttered death threats against Obama at McCain rallies. Yesterday, as I was leaving the train station on my way to work, I overheard a very disgruntled conversation from 3 guys (normal-looking, white-collar guys) talking about the election that ended with the comment: “Well, if you just shoot all the liberals, that wouldn’t be very democratic”, in a tone of voice that expressed the desire to do just that.

In sum, I’m still proud of my country for electing Obama, but I still want to move elsewhere. This country is a fucking powder keg.

Sorry to post comments twice in the same blog entry, but I wanted to give you and other Americans living abroad a sense of what’s going on at ground level over here. I’m not sure the newspapers are reporting this stuff, but they damn well should.

Shakir, Yep, I was here in ’97 (and ’92…). It was a BRILLIANT time to be in the UK then and New Labour’s win fit the mood perfectly.

I’m proud, finally, that this country finally took a positive step for the first time in this millenium.

Gia, were you in the UK for the May 1997 election?

I’m not hearing from anyone how almost exactly like New Labours/Tony Blair’s original campaign, Senator Obama’s has been.

Third Way!

If the republcians don’t play ball (they will) it could all end as horribly disenchantingly as when TB was kicked out.

After all the money that was spent, and the complete mess George Bush prepared, to only win by a few million votes is actually quite scary -there was also an interesting map on CNN about him getting less wins in the south than his democratic predecessors.

For now, a new dawn for america and the world (by virtue of all it’s debt and weapons :p )

Kind regards,

Shakir Razak

I am now proud to be an American again, and I haven’t felt that way for a very, very long time. My husband and I live in DC, and we’ll be on the Mall for his inauguration come hell or high water. We also may be able to snag tix for the Inauguration Ball, depending on whether a buddy of hubby’s can come through.

I really do hope we’ve turned the corner. There is a tremendous weight of expectation on Obama’s shoulders right now, and, great man that he undoubtedly is, he’s not a miracle-worker. His election won’t instantly solve our problems. Though I believe we’ve put ourselevs on the road to recovery by electing the best man possible to lead us in a time of crisis, it will take some time to get ourselves out of the hole Bush got us in.

The situation in the US calls for an FDR; I sincerely hope he’s up for the task, and I hope that the American people are patient enough to give him the time and space to work out what needs to be done.