The dreaded "elites" are one-by-one taking the stage of the Barack Obama presidency.
These Mensa-IQ, lavishly degreed M.B.A.s, B.A.s and Ph.D.s with practical track records are the perils that Sarah Palin predicted voters would reject in favor of a moose-eating, wolf-shooting, poorly read hockey mom, an eccentric political walk-on, Joe the Plumber, and the erratic 72-year-old John McCain, who she said had genuine moxie to whip America's crises with their homespun kitchen-table horse sense. You betcha.
Gone are the grating, imbecilic McCain-Palin monologues that appealed to the simple-minded. Obama's presidency is being launched with brisk, grownup decisiveness and eloquence, by appointees of imposing credentials and rescue plans girded with fastidious preparation and dedicated to the nation, not to cronies with their hands out.
Depressed financial markets are reacting with approval. Foreign leaders accustomed to Bush-Cheney swashbuckling are jubilant. Even conservative columnist David Brooks wrote glowingly, "As much as I want to resent these overeducated Achievatrons, I find myself tremendously impressed by the Obama transition. Unlike past Democratic administrations, they are not just handing out jobs to hacks approved by the favored interest groups. The team he has announced so far is more impressive than in recent history."
That's not a coincidental slap at the Bush-Cheney presidency, wherein appointees were required to merely swear cult-like allegiance to despising abortion and same-sex marriage, vowing to enrich industry at the expense of the environment, cheering on a pointless war and glorifying bankrupting national debt as a sign of progress.
Recruiting robotic followers allowed the Bush-Cheney White House to sweep in a cadre of liars, grafters, incompetents, ideological riffraff, foes of constitutional law and spendthrifts who brought the nation and its prestige to historic low points at home and abroad.
If the euphoria of Obama's election is indicative, his inauguration will lead to uproarious ecstasy. A huge sigh will go up as burdens of the Bush-Cheney reign—fear, humiliation, destructiveness, abuse of the public trust—are lifted off national shoulders.
Rem Reider, editor of the highly regarded American Journalism Review, got around to disposing of the fairy tale that Obama won unfairly because of negative media coverage of McCain.
First, Reider wrote, McCain enjoyed media fawning for years. Second, Obama had to overcome negative stories about his pastor, his neighborhood friends and an image as an inexperienced young whippersnapper while beating off the Hillary Clinton inevitability juggernaut.
Finally, McCain's campaign self-destructed. News coverage merely reported the daily McCain-Palin pratfalls.
AJR's Reimer concluded:
"McCain got his negative publicity the old-fashioned way. He earned it."
