First Principles

Other than being irritated by the fair-weather patriots (see my post below), the election of Obama has been somewhat of a relief to me.  I’ve been in a better mood, my obsessions and addictions to RCP and Drudge have been lifted (or at least have somewhat abated).

It reminds me of an ROTC experience I once had.  For two quarters, I was the Midshipman Battalion Commander.  It was a miserable position of responsibility without power, where I essentially acted as an umbrella to shield my fellow mids from the arbitrary Dilbert-esque absurdity of the Captain in charge of the unit.  (I learned a lot during that time about how not to lead people and manage an organization.)  Many of the other mids, including the guy who took over from me later, would complain about how I was doing things, signaling a profound lack of understanding of what I did – and what I even could do (which in reality, wasn’t very much).

Moments after I turned that thankless job over to someone else, I felt like I’d just taken off a gigantic backpack full of rocks.  I’m pretty sure my feet only touched the ground once or twice when, after the ceremony, I went to my friend’s apartment for breakfast.  Said breakfast was cold pizza and a couple of beers.  I don’t know that, to this day, any breakfast has ever tasted so sweet.

I knew that the guy who took over from me would not serve his umbrella role well.  He was a toadie whose loyalty extended no farther than himself.  He had spent several years as an enlisted man, and therefore “knew” everything about everything.  He was contemptuous of those of us without prior service, and equally (if not more) contemptuous of commissioned officers, mostly because he had no idea what they actually did.  He would add to the misery of that ROTC unit (and it was plenty miserable already).

I knew it.  I wasn’t looking forward to the coming (increased) pain.  I knew I would miss not being in a position to prevent some of the ridiculousness.  And I hoped that I was wrong about him and the coming changes.

But on that morning, it didn’t matter.  I was giddy at the prospect of not being responsible for anything any more, and for the upcoming rude awakening my successor was about to experience after all the crap he’d dealt to me. My grin could not be erased for the rest of the day.

—

That’s pretty much how I feel now.

The last eight years, I’ve carried a lot of water.  I’ve argued with a lot of people who didn’t know what they were talking about, and even a few who did.  I’ve defended policies I thought were very important, and even a few I didn’t myself like because it’s too easy to fall into team play.  I tried to bring out facts shamefully unknown to many, and purposely ignored by others.  I’ve been called countless names, sometimes directly, more often by people who don’t understand that when they call conservatives “fascist tools,” they’re lumping me in with that too.

This burden cannot help to grow over time.  I think President Bush has been treated shamefully and dishonestly, but even without that, people get tired of a single leader – especially a flawed one, which he obviously was.  Any President, as his mistakes accumulate inevitably over time, gets tougher and tougher to defend. And while McCain was not Bush, was better than Bush, and when he was like Bush was so in ways that I often appreciated, he still was part of the old fight, the old argument.  I would have been proud to carry the McCain burden, warts and all, but it would have been heavy – and it only would have gotten worse.

(And I’m just a political junkie with a blog, a vote, and a list of doors to knock on.  No wonder Presidents age so much in office.)

I must admit, too, that I’m buoyed by the happiness of the Obama supporters.  They’re happy.  They’re excited.  They’re optimistic.  It’s hard to be around that all day long and not absorb some of it.

And let’s face it – we all have a taste for the new and the fresh.  The stables of Washington accumulate crap at a rate that would make Augeas wince.  Flushing them out completely is an attractive thought, even if the new excrement promises to be worse than the old excrement.

Then you remember that fresh horse muck smells a heck of a lot worse than the older stuff.  But for now, at least, the stables are clean.

They won’t stay that way for long.

—

I know things will get worse, although I hope they don’t.  I know I will miss feeling responsible for what our government is doing, at least as a supporter of it.  I will wish on many occasions that McCain was our 44th President instead of Barack Obama.

And the fight is never over.  The mission of this blog is more timely than ever, and there is little time to waste lest we fall into a Eutopian socialist lull.

But for now, I’m just going to enjoy things for awhile.  Maybe I’ll eat some cold pizza and drink a few beers…