If Daily Obsessional was written a couple months ago, it would have been all politics, all the time. I was obsessed: I read every blog, watched every stat, waited with bated breath as the CNN map lit up, county after county, and now weeks after a democrat has actually won, I’ve lost that spark.
Sometimes, I think maybe it was the rat race that fired me up. Now, that Barack Obama embarks on the day to day work of being president, I can’t say I’m full of hope. It feels like politics for the next few years will just be about making the best from the worst of times. Now, when I read about politics, I’m not angered or riled up, I'm just sad. Sad, that the problems seem so pressing, but the solutions seem so far off.
We’re putting out stimulus after stimulus package, bailout after bailout, and the banks are still not lending out money; “dead men walking” according to some. Morale is down and every day you meet someone that has just lost a job. I read the news about new appointments and old feuds, and I feel that for all the changes, and Barack Obama is doing a lot, probably more in his first couple weeks then Bush did for months, there’s not that much to cling to. Every day there is a new setback, a new burden. One day Barack Obama puts out a statement to the Middle East. Hope. Within weeks, we have to send more troops into Afghanistan and Iran further develops their nuclear program. Reality.
The problems don’t end. The problems don’t even mitigate, and the pace of progress is a crawl. And a crawl is almost painful to watch, after the elation of change in theory. I’m still watching, still reading, but I’m only registering a whimper about it all.
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