Hope & Change

Here's the hope:

"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."....

Because I promise you, you all are gonna be sitting here a year from now going, 'Oh my God, why are they there in the polls? Why is the polling so down? Why is this thing so tough?' We're gonna have to make some incredibly tough decisions in the first two years. So I'm asking you now, I'm asking you now, be prepared to stick with us. Remember the faith you had at this point because you're going to have to reinforce us."

My gut reaction: speechlessness at Slow Joe's stunning candor.  I assume it's candor, since he was addressing hard-core Donks and sure sounded like he was delivering a warning of what's to come, in light of both campaigns receiving a national security briefing last week.  He was openly telling them that the election of Barry O makes one or more foreign policy crises more likely that than if McCain wins.  Gee, that's sure a heapin' helpin' 'o "hope," isn't it?  What happened to all that bloviating about the world "loving" America overnight once we "redeem" ourselves from the Bush "mistake" by imposing "the American Hussein" on ourselves?  Barack the Lord was going to travel the world, charm Ahmadinejad and Chavez and Kim jong-iL and Czar Vladimir and the ChiComms out of their collectiv(ist) shorts, beat all the swords into New Age lawn ornaments, heal the sick, give sight to the blind, unstop the ears of the deaf, give tongues to the mute, wipe away every tear.  It was going to be Operation Rainbow/Unicorn.  Now, when Barack the Lord is all but president-elect, they start laying the PR groundwork with the base for foreign policy/national security disasters to go with their domestic economic counterparts?

Which leads to the question of what exactly Slow Joe means by asking his Ameriphobic audience to "stand with" Barack the Lord because "it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."  The context would suggest that Team Hussein is actually looking forward to said overseas calamity - or, dare I say, may even actively provoke one - as an opportunity to deliver an overboard-hawkish response in order to "disarm" his center-right critics (who would, by this time, presumeably already be incarcerated at Gitmo on sedition charges, but I digress....) and have an unimpeded surrender hand thereafter.  But you can also make the case that Biden is telling the fever swamp that Barry is going to do exactly what they want him to do, go limp, go soft, give up, wave the white flag, yield, run away, embody Acute Foreign Policy Erectile Disfunction Syndrome, bend over and squeal, "Yes, sir, may I have another?," and it's going to make their guy look REALLY bad and tank in the polls, but it will eventually turn out to be the "right thing to do" and will vindicate his pacifist, defeatist, America-loathing approach.

For a ticket that doesn't know what the hell it's doing on pretty much anything, I'm not sure whether "loose cannon-ism" or "shooting blanks" is the more terrifying.

My reaction after a moment to reflect upon it: they really do think this race is over.  Yeah, I know, Joe Biden is Joe Biden is Joe Biden - "Stand up, Chuck!" - but can a gaffe of this magnitude possibly be just more run-of-the-mill Bidenrreah freelancing?  I can't believe even Senator Rogaine blurts out something this potentially self-sabotaging to B.O.'s campaign if they're not all convinced that they've got November 4th in the can.

And - betcha thought I forgot, didncha? - here comes the "change":

In today's the Washington Post:

Several advisers to Obama also said the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, Senator John F. Kerry (MA), could be on the shortlist to become secretary of state.

....Elsewhere in that article, they mention Tom Daschle as White House chief of staff (actually not the worst idea I've ever heard), Senator Jack Reed, D-RI, as Secretary of Defense, and Eric Holder as Attorney General (among others)....

If the Obama administration really does consist of the names above, then "bringing change to Washington" will mean a Vice President first elected to Washington office in 1972, a chief of staff first elected to Washington office in 1978, a Secretary of State first elected to Washington office in 1984, a Secretary of Defense first elected to Washington office in 1990, and an attorney general who first began working at the Department of Justice in 1976.

Looks like they left out Chris Dodd as Secretary of the Treasury (Barney Frank will be appointed to John Kerry's Senate seat).

Ah, but don't worry, friends and neighbors, you'll also have Tony Rezko as Secretary of Commerce, Franklin Raines as Secretary of Housing & Urban Development, William Ayers as Secretary of the Treasury, Jesse Jackson as Ambassador to the U.N., and Jeremiah Wright as Faith-Based Services Czar.  Still plenty of "change you can believe in".

We're not screwed, my friends.  We are gang-raped, stabbed multiple times, and thrown face-down in an abandoned drainage ditch.

UPDATE: 'nother case in point - when President Hussein and the Donk Politburo simply let the Bush tax cuts expire, a family with taxable income of $60,000 - a helluva lot less than Barry's promised $250,000 - will get socked with a big, fat, 35% tax hike.  In the middle of a recession.

I guess the "consolation" is there'll be a lot fewer people earning above sixty grand a year.  Just one more dollop of hopeless change Barack the Lord has waiting for us after the November 4th "rapture".