You know what, Mr. President? You are my friend! And I think we look pretty good up there!

Adam and I were two of over 26,500 people at the Obama-Feingold-Barrett rally on Library Mall yesterday. I showed up at 3:30, when the gates opened, and walked to the end of the line… six blocks away. We only got as close as the bottom of Bascom Hill. I left about five minutes before the rally ended, knowing I had a half-hour walk ahead of me and only 15 minutes of light and spied Obama through a fence from University Avenue. He was a brownish spec wearing a white shirt, basically, and was distinguished only by the fact that he was gesturing more broadly than the Secret Service would allow anyone else in the audience to do!

Feingold's appearance was a pleasant surprise. He mentioned some billboards here that feature Feingold and Obama's faces ("Feingold and Friend") and Russ said, "You know what, Mr. President? You are my friend! And I think we look pretty good up there!"

I think so, too.

On the plus side, the next week-and-a-half means
- Madison World Music Festival (!!!!)
- Willy Street Fair (!!!)
- Obama on the UW-Madison campus (!!!!)
- Wicked (!!!!)

and

- moving into our apartment tomorrow, finally!

and

- my old boss is willing to send me out to work for the State of Wisconsin as soon as a position opens up!




On the downside, Bernd and I are both super sick, and our apartment still looks more like a battlefield than a habitable space...

Killing a woman is like killing a bird.

What did I take away from Obama's speech? We can't 'win' the way the previous administration dreamed we would (indeed, we're not even going to delude ourselves into believing that's possible), and we can't leave. The situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan is precarious, to put it mildly, and we do care what happens there. But we need to be realistic about what we can achieve in Afghanistan. The new outlook for Afghanistan that Obama outlined last night no longer entertains any pretensions of being a righteous mission. It's realistic--depressingly so. Heartbreakingly so.

We're not there on a charity mission but are there to advance what we think are our interests. That's why some of the most oppressive governments in the Middle East will continue to be our most stalwart allies. GLENN GREENWALD.

The sad fact is that in Afghanistan, killing a woman is like killing a bird. The United States has tried to justify its occupation with rhetoric about "liberating" Afghan women, but we remain caged in our country, without access to justice and still ruled by women-hating criminals. Fundamentalists still preach that "a woman should be in her house or in the grave." In most places it is still not safe for a woman to appear in public uncovered, or to walk on the street without a male relative. Girls are still sold into marriage. Rape goes unpunished every day. MALALAI JOYA.

But Obama is more realistic about our limitations or at least more honest about his intentions than the previous administration when he acknowledges that we can't afford to define our national security interests so broadly that these interests include installing free and democratic governments by force. That isn't working for us. We're no good at it. Humanitarian interventions in moments of crisis are one thing, but we can't force countries to act and think along certain lines. We can't afford to engage in nation-building in Afghanistan: we can't afford this in terms of money, people, time, patience, energy, will, imagination or even attention. Maybe when the fighting dies down, maybe when the population is secure, maybe when the troops start pulling out, maybe when (if) we're not stretched so thin--maybe then other avenues to ensuring human rights in Afghanistan will open themselves to us. We can only hope.

We can only hope the surge works and that the US and our partners (however much we wish we had better partners in Afghanistan) become the big brand-name in security, food, water, education and Not Getting Blown To Bits in the eyes of the Afghan people, or else there's really very little optimism to be had.

This side of November fourth.

I don’t think I really believe it yet. Last night I know I couldn’t grasp it and this morning it’s still just beyond my reach.

A friend and I drove through downtown Madison just before midnight last night. Wisconsin went 56% for Mr. Obama (our county nearly 75%!), and the whole city was lit up, the streets alive with excitement and noisy with cheers and car horns. And I sat in the passenger seat with the window rolled all the way down and I don’t think I ever fully appreciated all the possibility in the world until last night.

There is still a lot to be nervous about this morning. The problems that face our nation did not dissolve with Obama’s victory. Don’t change “Yes We Can” to “Yes We Did” just yet. This is just the beginning. We have been given the opportunity to begin, to give of ourselves and our time for good and worthwhile causes, to rehabilitate our country at home and in the eyes of the world, to do, in the words of the New York Times, “those things beyond the power of individual citizens: to regulate the economy fairly, keep the air clean and the food safe, ensure that the sick have access to health care, and educate children to compete in a globalized world… to identify all of the ways that Americans’ basic rights and fundamental values have been violated and rein that dark work back in… Mr. Obama inherits a terrible legacy.”

Garrison Keillor wrote this morning that Barack Obama has been “elevated to sainthood and now [is] expected to walk on water and turn it into wine. Meanwhile, everything he said about the national mess is utterly true and a lot more.”

So it won’t be easy. This victory alone is not the change we seek — it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you. If we put down our signs and close our front doors and our hearts now, what will come of this historic moment? Keep us mobilized in the service of hope and the greater good, Obama. Give us meaningful work and we will do it.



My favorite passage from Barack Obama’s speech came near the end:

As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, "We are not enemies, but friends... Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection." And, to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your president, too.

And this made us all laugh: Sasha and Malia, I love you both so much, and you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House. XD.


I am so excited for the next four years to begin.

But the really right answer is: What if he is?

"I'm also troubled by, not what Sen. McCain says, but what members of the party say, and it is permitted to be said such things as: "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is: he is not a Muslim. He's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is: What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is: No, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she can be president?"

Finally, someone said it. Thank you, Mr. Powell.