A reader sees an Obama trade-mark:

What many do not understand is that the government is playing for time, not some brilliant economic miracle. We do not have the money or political leverage to solve this problem from the top down by divine fiat. We have to buy time — literally — for the ten-thousand smaller acts of restoration and renewal to take place. All this flow of money, this vast seemingly indiscriminate transfusion of economic blood, has one purpose: to keep the patient’s heart pumping until the systemic crisis is past — another 6-12-18 months. It is messy, sloppy, gross heroic medicine. Sure there’s tremendous waste. Get used to it. And get these people out of the operating room!
It is very interesting to watch how this crisis reveals and highlights character: the sniveling privileged Wall Street upper-crust, the semi-hysterical, uninformed punditocracy, the puerile Republican opposition — and Obama, cool as a cucumber, playing his game, five steps ahead, setting up moves that won’t come to fruition for months or years, while his opposition flails at the thin air where he used to be. I love it.
It’s the future that is calling Obama, not the present.
The Republican reaction to this stimulus package is on a par with McCain suspending his campaign during the primary to “handle” the economic crisis back in Washington. Completely clueless, cynical empty gestures. They think we’ll forget. They’re wrong. What Karl Rove wanted, and was willing to steal by any means necessary, Obama will get, handed to him as a free gift by the American people: real political power, the power to transform society for a generation or more.

Being bipartisan is like dancing the tango, it takes two. So far Obama has been dancing all by himself with his Republican partners — they get gussied up, smile at him, look like they’re having fun and then — they go back to the Republican Club and plot against him. It’s like the Rick Warren thing, when people were saying Obama had to have a brilliant strategy behind his controversial move. What was it? So now I’m beginning to wonder if there is any brilliance behind any of these “bipartisan” decisions, for instance Gregg at Commerce. You can keep your enemies so close that your friends can’t get to you. And right now Obama needs friends because as much as he wants to dance “the bipartisan” he’s dancing all by himself. I fear his friends will abandon him and his opponents will destroy him.

I find it historically stunning and worth noting that the Republicans found their voices as soon as Bush flew off the White House lawn and Obama took office.  Just two weeks ago the only person who gave the House and Senate Republicans a voice was Obama.  Where was their leader, their President, Mr. Bush, then?  Just a few weeks ago, the only person in Washington working his ass off to build a coalition that mirrored the citizens who elected him was Obama.  He hasn’t been in office a week so far and yet Republicans and their talking head spores are hoping and praying he will not succeed.  I’ll file them and their sentiments under a caption that reads, “LOSERS.”  Or capital “L” above the forehead.  Or a term most befitting, “failures.”

To the Democrats in Congress, I have eight words:  ”Leave your egos at the door and fight.”  Obama can afford to reach out and build a coalition across party lines, you cannot.  You better not let him down, you better be partisan and get the damn job done.  Otherwise, let Webb from Virginia replace Reid, (let anyone replace Reid), and find a replacement for Pelosi unless she supports Obama and gets every Democrat in line.  I’m tired of the analogy that bringing Democrats together is like herding cats.  Cats are intuitive and smart.  They also have sharp tongues.  Remember that Pelosi.  It takes a President and a House to get things done in DC. 

Barack Obama does not remind me of any historical figures, he does not remind me of any characters in fiction, he does not even remind me of icons in rock and roll songs, and this from someone who still plays vinyl on a Fisher turntable with 2 1/2 foot high wooden Jansen speakers. 

He does not remind me of anyone I know. 

I will get a good night’s sleep tomorrow night, on all levels.     

“There’s an old saying here in California, I mean in west Texas, did I just say I live in California, I’m in Texas, but not right now, I’m in Washington, I’m the President.  Anyway I can fool me once but you can’t fool me again, and our job in the war on terra is to forget about it because well, that’s not why I got this job, I mean ask Scale, that guy on the court, or behind first base, the Supreme justice guy who told me to forget about how I was chosen to be commander in disbelief, I mean in hindsight, he told me to forget about it.  God bless America.” 

– “GWB, no GHB, my initials, you know what I mean by now.”

Update: All my postings from December 10 until now are lost forever in the cyber-trash-heap because my web host, Colizer, dumped me without my permission (another story), including my reaction to Obama choosing Rick Warren for the Invocation at the Inauguration. No way can I muster my anger and disappointment about that topic again. Too much has happened since then. I’m in a better mood, for one thing.

Now, an excerpt from “Rattlesnake Momma,” my new novel:

My mother called tonight, she remembered my birthday. I was afraid she had forgotten because she has dementia. Or dementia has her. Take your pick. She’s still living at home because she married one of her husbands for the third time and he’s taking care of her. My heart has been split in half for a year about the situation but now I’m stitching the two halves together again. I can’t afford to lose anyone I love or anyone who loves me. Love is too precious to abandon.