I Promise All My Posts Won't Be This Long

Well, this is it. I'm jumping head first into the blogosphere.

I came home from Christmas shopping tonight to find a postcard from none other than my good friends Barry and Meesh. It was a nice little note, thanking me for my support. (I'm kind of interested as to who the campaign sent these out to. Volunteers? Contributors? Its entire listserve? So this is where all that extra money went after the election.) In all seriousness though, I thought it was a nice gesture. Reading it over, and looking at the photo on the front of the Obamas and the Bidens celebrating together on stage in Grant Park... man. Not to get overly sentimental here, but it brought me back a little. Back to the campaign, the speeches, the feeling that this guy really was different, that he wasn't just another politician, that he could effect real change. To exchanging high-fives and terrorist fist jabs in a cozy little house in Millbrook, New York. It was a place I realized I hadn't been in at least a few weeks, probably a month. It got me pumped again, viscerally pumped, for Obama's presidency, and what it could mean for this country.

Then I fired up the ol' IBM ThinkPad (support your local economy!) and saw this. And this. And, amusingly, this.

Look, I always knew that, despite John McCain's claims to the contrary, Barack Obama wasn't "The One." One, he's a politician. He's not Jesus. He's flip-flopped on occasion for reasons of political expediency, and yes, he does lack experience in Washington, experience I think would have served him well over the next six months. Two, this country is in a pretty (pur-itty, pur-itty) bad spot, and even in the best of circumstances Obama couldn't implement his ideal agenda. And three, Obama cannot singlehandedly change the culture in Washington. He cannot disarm the Republican smear-and-stall campaign, or even give his own party a backbone. Barack, and those of us who support him, have got a steep, steep hill to climb, people.

So that's where I begin my journey into Bloggity Blog-Blog Land. Optimistic about Obama as a person, a politician, and a leader, but unsure about the degree to which he can overcome everything he's up against.

In short, I have no idea what the hell's going to happen. I just hope Brandon doesn't make a fool of me here. After all, this is a politics-and-music blog, and I lack both his political science know-how AND his musical prowess (approximately 96 percent of the music-related comments that come out of his mouth go right over my head). Now, if this blog was about time travel...