Silly Little Country

A Great Day for the USA

Nobody can deny the significance of the first African-American President-elect. Even I was moved seeing Jesse Jackson's tears, and hearing Colin Powell describe his. And had I a vote, I would have cast it, with enormous reservations, for Obama, though I have referred to him, and I think accurately, as a windbag. In the end I just have more faith that he will gather good advisers. Why I think this, given his flirtations with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, might be the base for an interesting psychological study.

I also think both candidates are quite decent people in some basic ways. But I had NO idea how truly decent, and quietly so, McCain is. John Hinderaker added some education for me (this is on top of the adopted Bangladeshi child that never seems to be mentioned).

A nurse entered and seemed surprised to find anyone there, and it wasn't long before I found out why: Almost no one visits anymore. In his time, which was not very long ago, Mo Udall was one of the most-sought-after men in the Democratic Party. Yet as he dies in a veterans hospital a few miles from the Capitol, he is visited regularly only by a single old political friend, John McCain.

It is a lucky country that can celebrate the defeat of such a man.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 5:38 PM