President Obama's Farewell

I voted for Barack Obama in 2008, and I remember being full of hope at the time. After being embarrassed and often horrified by President Bush for eight years, I was also thrilled to have a president who was educated and dignified and a great speaker. By 2012 I'd had enough of hopes deferred and voted for Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein. And my disappointment with President Obama has not abated in the years of his second term. After all, Gitmo is still open,  drone strikes (and kills) are way up from the Bush days 1 , & Obamacare made huge concessions to the pharmaceutical companies, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

However . . .

. . . as I watched his farewell address last night, I couldn't help but echo the sentiments of those who chanted, "Four more years!" Part of that, of course, is the dread of he who comes after Obama, The undiscovered cunt from whose bourn No Moslem returns, who puzzles the will  And makes me want to bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that I know not of. Part of it was that despite his flaws, President Obama brought a dignity to the office which will completely disappear in ten days. We are about to have a President who attacks actors on Twitter. We are about to have a President who has nominated for Attorney General a man who has referred to the work of the NAACP as un-American, and who has repeatedly spoken out against the federal Voting Rights Act. We are about . . . oh, hell, what's the use? You either know the score or disagree or don't care. But no matter which category you fall into, we're all in for a very rude awakening.

Time to batten down the hatches. There's a there's a big nor'easter blowin in.

1  "Whereas President George W. Bush authorized approximately 50 drone strikes that killed 296 terrorists and 195 civilians in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia, Obama has authorized 506 strikes that have killed 3,040 terrorists and 391 civilians." The New York Times, "Obama’s Embrace of Drone Strikes Will Be a Lasting Legacy" by Micah Zenko, UPDATED JANUARY 12, 2016, 2:57 PM.