Avuncular American

Algerian Elections June 1990

The most impressive tactic in the mass demonstration was the silence.

The bearded FIS - French acronym for the Islamic Salvation Front - demonstrators wound their way up the hills of Algiers in perfect order, even arranging their own ambulances in case of mishaps (there were none).  The silence was eloquent, and it showed better than any banner or slogan that the new party could impose discipline.  But could it get out the vote?

(image, Jurist, University of Pittsburgh)

It was spring 1990, and I had just arrived in Algeria to take up my new job at the American Embassy as head of the political section.  I had actually left a tropical paradise several months early to get to Algiers in time to cover the first contested elections since Algerian independence in 1962.  I knew it would be interesting, but I was unaware that I'd be a witness to a sea change in this North African country's history.

Twenty years later, we can look at Algeria's municipal and regional assembly elections of June 12, 1990 as a dangerous experiment in democracy, one that degenerated into a quasi-civil war after the Army canceled parliamentary elections that the FIS was slated to win in January 1992.  But that conventional wisdom is based on a certain determinism.  Algeria need not have descended into more than a decade of bloodletting.

In spring 1990, then Algerian President Chadli Bendjedid, two weeks before the elections, raised hopes when he said that "the time of top-down governance is over.  Ruling party and opposition must be elected, not co-opted or parachuted in by the machine."  Few believed that he was sincere.  After all, street signs in Algiers pointed to the "Headquarters of The Party," as in the single party, the FLN that had led the country to independence from France.

That blasé attitude was certainly present in a little corner restaurant where I'd stopped for lunch on June 12, taking a break from my urban walkabout to observe polling sites.  The man at the table near mine, a civil servant, wasn't even voting.  "Why bother?" he scoffed, "we know what the results will be."  That would have been true before June 1990, but that day, it was to be different.  The party that got out the vote would win.

And that's what the FIS did.  In polling place after polling place, I came across the ubiquitous FIS election observers.  All the parties were authorized to place their watchdogs at the election sites; only the FIS did it with any regularity.  Truth be told, some of the small "democratic" parties probably didn't have sufficient members to allow other than a symbolic presence.  But even the ruling FLN was absent.  Like my lunchtime friend, they said "why bother?"

The rest is history.  The FIS' 4.5 million votes were double that of the FLN, and left all other parties in the dust.  FIS members took up positions as mayors of Algiers, Oran, and all the major cities.  It maintained its hold on municipal and regional assemblies until its dissolution after the January 1992 coup.

Years later, I listened to an Algerian general at an international conference refer to "democratic terrorism" to explain the FIS electoral victories of June 1990 and December 1991, as if voting were somehow illegitimate if you disagreed with the results.  We know where that attitude led.

The world still hasn't come to grips with the quandary of what to do when the "wrong" side wins, especially when it's an Islamist party.  In Gaza, the Hamas winners of the January 2006 elections are still waiting to do their victory lap...

Repeal This?

You're turning me down?  Hey, I got news for you, you little two-bit prick, son of a bitch, rat-bastard you did nothing for me! You did f*****g NOTHING for me!

Boss Paul Vitti (Robert De Niro), Analyze This (1999)

As Mike Madden writes ("Why healthcare reform could work for Democrats now") in today's Salon.com

Some of the most popular provisions in the legislation will be active... just in time for the elections. Which is why some Democrats are practically begging Republicans to make repealing the healthcare law the centerpiece of the fall campaign, the way top GOP leaders have promised to do.

Imagine millions of De Niro-like reactions this November should Republicans try to repeal this:

• HELP FOR EARLY RETIREES—Creates a temporary re‐insurance program (until the Exchanges are available) to help offset the costs of expensive premiums for employers and retirees for health benefits for retirees age 55‐64.  Effective 90 days after enactment.
• ENDS RESCISSIONS—Bans insurance companies from dropping people from coverage when they get sick.  Effective 6 months after enactment.
• NO DISCRIMINATION AGAINST CHILDREN WITH PRE‐EXISTING CONDITIONS—Prohibits new health plans in all markets plus grandfathered group health plans from denying coverage to children with pre‐existing conditions.  Effective 6 months after enactment.  (Beginning in 2014, this prohibition would apply to all persons.)
• BANS LIFETIME LIMITS ON COVERAGE—Prohibits health insurance companies from placing lifetime caps on coverage.  Effective 6 months after enactment.
• BANS RESTRICTIVE ANNUAL LIMITS ON COVERAGE—Tightly restricts the use of annual limits to ensure access to needed care in all new plans and grandfathered group health plans.  These tight restrictions will be defined by HHS.  Effective 6 months after enactment.  (Beginning in 2014, the use of any annual limits would be prohibited for all new plans and grandfathered group health plans.)
• FREE PREVENTIVE CARE UNDER NEW PRIVATE PLANS—Requires new private plans to cover preventive services with no co‐payments and with preventive services being exempt from deductibles.  Effective 6 months after enactment.
• NEW, INDEPENDENT APPEALS PROCESS—Ensures consumers in new plans have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal decisions by their health insurance plan.  Effective 6 months after enactment.
• IMMEDIATE HELP FOR THE UNINSURED UNTIL EXCHANGE IS AVAILABLE (INTERIM HIGH‐RISK POOL)—Provides immediate access to affordable insurance for Americans who are uninsured because of a pre‐existing condition ‐ through a temporary subsidized high‐risk pool.  Effective 90 days after enactment.
• EXTENDS COVERAGE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE UP TO 26TH BIRTHDAY THROUGH PARENTS’ INSURANCE – Requires new health plans and certain grandfathered plans to allow young people up to their 26th birthday to remain on their parents’ insurance policy, at the parents’ choice.  Effective 6 months after enactment.
• COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS—Increases funding for Community Health Centers to allow for nearly a doubling of the number of patients seen by the centers over the next 5 years.  Effective beginning in fiscal year 2010
• INCREASING NUMBER OF PRIMARY CARE DOCTORS—Provides new investment in training programs to increase the number of primary care doctors, nurses, and public health professionals.  Effective beginning in fiscal year 2010.
• PROHIBITING DISCRIMINATION BASED ON SALARY—Prohibits group health plans from establishing any eligibility rules for health care coverage that have the effect of discriminating in favor of higher wage employees.  Effective 6 months after enactment.
• HEALTH INSURANCE CONSUMER INFORMATION—Provides aid to states in establishing offices of health insurance consumer assistance in order to help individuals with the filing of complaints and appeals.  Effective beginning in FY 2010.

The full list of the reforms is available from Democrats Abroad.  For those who are hazy on dates, "90 days after enactment" is June, "6 months after enactment" is September, and "effective beginning in FY 2010" is, well, now.

So, if I understand it correctly, the Republican Repealers want to take all this away from Americans?  The Party of No wants to relegate kids with pre-existing conditions back to the ranks of the uninsured?

Citizens might exhibit a Boss Vitti reflex in the voting booth - "You did f*****g NOTHING for me!"

Repeal this?  Go ahead, make my day.

Coastal Protection, Then and Now

If you’re like me, you may not have known that the patron saint of customs agents is St. Matthew. What better place, then, to hike along the sentier douanier, the customs path that follows Brittany’s rugged coastline, than at Pointe St. Mathieu, west of the port of Brest?

Customs agents used to scout the horizon for signs of smugglers trying to ply the tax-free liquor trade. In the 1940s, German bunkers consumed huge amounts of concrete in a futile quest to ward off Allied invaders. Their hulking presence is especially evident here on the watery approaches to Brest, where the Germans established an important U-Boat base.

Brest is still an important maritime center, home to France’s naval academy, and the Crozon Peninsula across the bay is reputed to be a nuclear site. But the French patrol vessels that ply these waters are probably as interested in preventing pollution than in warding off hostile ships.

Offshore, an astounding 40,000 ships a year travel the maritime highway en route to and from the English Channel. Most of them are good international citizens; some crash on the rocky outcroppings that dot the Mer d’Iroise; and some deliberately flush out their oily fuel tanks and pollute some of the most pristine waters in Europe, which have been given UNESCO protected status.

The threat is not only from offshore: industrial agriculture, especially intensive pork and chicken production, has resulted in massive nitrate pollution of Breton fresh water resources. As this wends its way to the sea, smelly (and potentially deadly) green algae creates a hideous sludge on some of the most beautiful coves and beaches in Western Europe. It’s a tragedy, but one that only comes to public attention when a horse or a dog succumbs to the toxic fumes. So far, humans have only had close calls.

Interestingly, Brittany was one of the three regions in last week’s first round of elections where Socialists and Ecologists failed to reach an agreement on joint lists for next Sunday’s second round. If any region needs more environmentalists to take on entrenched interests, it is Brittany.

Nowhere else is the contrast between differing economic models as drastic. Raise millions of pigs and chickens for our fast food, spread their waste over the fields, and scare off potential tourists who come to Brittany for its combination of rural charm and coastal adventure? If ever there was a challenge for sustainable development, it is here.

Women Rule, Though Not Where It Matters

In honor of International Women's Day (and the Oscars victory of Kathryn Bigelow), I repeat a column that ran here last year, and which first appeared as "Women in Power" in Together Magazine, a Brussels bi-monthly.  Although yesterday's Iraqi vote will give a serious boost to women's numbers among the world's elected, not much has changed in the United States of political power women, unless you count "professional" wrestling's Linda McMahon's candidacy for the Senate a positive development.

Image: "Women Rule Social Media?" Sarah Chong, Penn Olson.

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A mini-quiz to begin: Who was the first female US Presidential candidate?

a. Eleanor Roosevelt
b. Hillary Clinton
c. Geraldine Ferraro
d. Shirley Chisholm
e. None of the above

Attention - it’s actually a trick question. Most people know that Hillary Clinton was the first woman to run for President. Except she wasn’t. In fact, the mostly forgotten Victoria Woodhull (from as far back as 1872) takes that honor - her running mate, black anti-slavery campaigner Frederick Douglass, is better remembered. Appropriately enough, they were candidates for the Equal Rights Party.

“You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby” - the 1960s vintage "Virginia Slims" cigarette adverts (not Fatboy Slim’s album) - have provided clichéd headlines for thousands of articles on the progress of women’s rights during the past 40 years. In the American political battleground, ‘Women in Power’ remains a largely underachieved goal, with notable exceptions. More accurately, we might say ‘Women For Power’, as their vote is increasingly crucial to winning elective office for candidates of either sex.

LONG TIME COMING

It wasn’t until the 20th century that women were enfranchised, let alone taken seriously enough to campaign in the mainstream parties. In the Democratic Party, Shirley Chisholm, the first black Congresswoman, ran unsuccessfully for President in 1972. In 1984 another Democrat, Geraldine Ferraro, became the first woman Vice Presidential nominee of a major party, but met the same fate as Republican Sarah Palin in 2008.

So Hillary Clinton, though she got further than other American women, didn’t invent female Presidential politics. In fact, the US comes out rather poorly in some metrics: Rwanda is number one in elected women, while Belgium is number eight. The US ranks a lowly 57 in terms of female members of parliamentary bodies (for women in elective office, it is 70th in the world). Women have fared somewhat better in the US Senate and states, however - there are 16 women out of 100 senators, and women are governors in 11 of the 50 states. [Update 3/8/2010: I guess we have to subtract Sarah Palin - we know where she is - and Kathleen Sebelius, now Secretary of Health, a key portfolio].

In the Presidential succession lineup, Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House of Representatives comes after the Vice President. Pelosi wields considerable legislative power, which was strengthened in the 2008 elections. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is also highly placed in the succession order, as was her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice.

Rice wasn’t the first female Secretary of State; Madeleine Albright was, a decade earlier. And Clinton, who during husband Bill’s tenure preferred a more overtly political role to the honorific duties of ‘First Lady’, was not the first Presidential wife to dabble in matters of state. Edith Wilson was catapulted into an unofficial ‘secret Presidency’ when her husband Woodrow suffered a stroke after WW I, and Eleanor Roosevelt survived her husband Franklin to lead the US delegation at the 1948 adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

THE FEMALE FACTOR

So, we’ve established that American women have been politically active for some time, even before they won the right to vote in 1920, but what has it got them? Under-representation, for one thing: only 25 per cent of US elective office holders are women, though they comprise 52 per cent of the population, and there’s also the notion - often misconstrued - that there is a ‘women’s vote’, that is, they vote monolithically, and that women vote for women.

The 2008 campaign was instructive: though most attention had been on Hillary Clinton’s prospects, she had barely lost the Democratic Party nomination when the Republican Party came up with its own woman - Sarah Palin, (then) Governor of Alaska. John McCain’s choice of Palin as running mate was both a bold move to corral the conservative base and a blatant bid for ‘the women’s vote’. All manner of supposedly disappointed ‘Clinton women’ were trotted out to testify how they were now going to vote Republican.

And we all know how it ended - despite the absence of Hillary Clinton on the Democratic ticket and Sarah Palin’s seeming omnipresence on the Republican side, Barack Obama carried the vote of women by a wide margin. It may be that their vote was decisive - for years, millions more women have voted than men, well beyond their numerical superiority in the population. In the end, it was their preference, especially among younger and unmarried women, for Obama’s stand on issues - and not gender solidarity - that swayed women in 2008.

IT’S THE POLICY, STUPID

Beyond elections, women in the United States struggle to gain influence and power relative to their numbers. It’s mostly an uphill battle, but some sectors stand out. Women now make up 14 per cent of the US Army, and 21 have attained the rank of general. In the State Department, Hillary Clinton presides over a diplomatic corps that includes more than 50 women of ambassadorial rank.

Barack Obama didn’t win the Presidency by campaigning as the African-American or mixed-race candidate. In fact, he won by transcending racial pigeonholing. Obama’s victory, Hillary Clinton’s close-run thing, and Sarah Palin’s flop should show American women that - more than race or gender - it’s the policy, stupid. 'You’ve Got a Long Way to Go, Baby' - but at least the route to power for American women is no longer the ‘Road to Nowhere’.

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Governance: Trying Times in Eunomia

Eunomia, as defined in the blog of that name, means "the principle of good order."

It's well worth a look - The Economist calls its author Daniel Larison "a thoughtful paleoconservative."  Appropriate enough, given his role as contributing editor of The American Conservative, where his blog appears.  After years of equating conservatives with the messianic "neo" variety, it's refreshing to consider that their "paleo" precursors had many common sense attitudes, especially as concern US imperial tendencies.

As opposed to that other Greek word, utopia, eunomia is more attainable, at least intermittently.  Oxford's definition - "a political condition of good law, well administered" - at least gives politicians something to aim for.

"Governance" is one of those euphemistic (those Greeks again) words that you might have come to dislike from their overuse, a bit like "wellness" (thank God we're not debating "wellness reform").  Governance is usually preceded by the adjective "good," for you wouldn't want the opposite.  Development circles are awash with jobs for governance advisers, where professionals from aid-giving countries spread their knowledge in places with a need for better government.

But wait a minute: as with many such well-meaning efforts, isn't this often a case of "do as I say, not as I do?"  Many of these governance advisers hail from places like the US and Europe, where there are numerous examples of governance gone astray, of eunomia tending towards dystopia.  Just look at the craziness reigning in the US Congress.  Which brings me back to the old time conservatives.

Might country club Republicans, paleoconservatives, and realists of all sorts have more in common than we think with pragmatic Democrats and moderate progressives?  Might they be equally appalled at the rise of the Tea Party and the resurgence of extremists like the John Birch Society, as described yesterday in Frank Rich's NYT column "The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged."  If anything, Tea Partyers will steal Republican votes, as we are starting to see in places like Texas.

On this side of the Atlantic, while sane European leaders attempt to deal with the economic dystopia of non-eunomic Greece, out surges a loony from the British UKIP Party, Disparaging Farage, crudely attacking the EU leadership and the countries from which they hail.

It's a bit too Pollyanna-ish to see the upside of all this, but the whole point is that the UKIPs and the Tea Parties are not really interested in governance.  They revel in their capacity to outrage.

In the US, it should be evident to serious Republicans that to get too close to the barn burners threatens their own ability to govern.   Does it help or hurt their cause that a Republican Senator is single-handedly holding up unemployment compensation, including his own constituents'...?

If eunomia is too highfalutin' a concept of governance, how about these two: civility, and civics?

Clowns To the Left, Jokers To the Right: Stuck in the Middle?

The old song was swimming around in my head, and I knew I'd have to turn it into a post: Stuck in the Middle With You, a 1972 hit by the Scottish group Stealers Wheel (lyrics available here).   Some may remember the refrain.

President Obama was only about 9 years old when the record came out, so it may not have been on his mind when presiding over the Bipartisan Health Care Meeting this past week.  But the man deserves sainthood for his calm.

Actually, the line about "clowns to the left" is not fair, and may not be accurate, if The Nation's John Nichols is to be believed: he calls them and other advocates of Medicare-for-all or single-payer the "Missing Voices at the Healthcare Summit."  I agree that single-payer should have been seriously considered all along, but it never had a chance after "death panel" voodoo had taken hold last summer.

But "jokers to the right" there were aplenty, and like Dana Milbank, I wish that the moderate Presidential moderator had smacked some of them down when they got ornery.

Here's one of the things that bother me about the post-summit spin coming from the Democrats: the notion that

At the meeting, both sides found common ground on critical issues including

o   Eliminating waste and fraud in Medicare and Medicaid

o   Reforming medical malpractice laws

o   Providing more choices in coverage for individuals and the option to pool coverage for small businesses

o   Reforming the insurance market

"Common ground?"  Why should the Republicans be given any credit for seeming reasonable, when all indications are that they will continue to oppose any changes to the broken system?  If reform passes, it will be thanks to Democratic votes, and Democratic votes alone.

When the Republicans say "start over" on health care reform, that is not "common ground." It's code for grind to a halt.  Pass the bill, then go on to these nice "common ground" points in Step 2, from a position of strength.

You Say Demagoguery, I Say Demagogy...

... but the meaning is the same: today is the 60th anniversary of the beginning of an era: "1950: McCarthy Launches Anti-Red Crusade," on the helpful BBC site "On This Day."

Actually, the red scare had already gotten underway, but Senator Joe McCarthy simply capitalized on the hysteria.  After needlessly ruining several careers among the State Department's Foreign Service, he was eventually censured by the Senate, but not before the greatest reproach to McCarthy was uttered by Joseph Welch, counsel for the US Army: "Have you no sense of decency?"

How convenient, this McCarthyite anniversary, while we consider this past weekend's populist fest, the Tea Party convention.  For you can't have demagogues without populists, and that's what Tea-Partyism is, our latest outburst of populism.

Dictators, Democracy, and American Public Culture by Benjamin L. Alpers (2002, UNC Press) reminds us that

The American populist tradition divides the world into "us" and "them." It typically imagines the great, virtuous mass of hardworking people arrayed against a small group of distant elites, bankers, bureaucrats, and the like.

If "virtuous" and "hardworking" sound innocuous enough, Alpers then cites the kind of "us and them" that went on under populist demagogue Father (yes, a Catholic priest) Charles Coughlin, an anti-Semitic rabble-rouser in the 20s and 30s.

Now we have the likes of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, who dangerously hark back to the "us and them" theme, and yearn for the days when "us" took no lessons from "them."  Their targets may be different - Muslims, Latin immigrants, Democrats - but they thrive on division, exclusion.  Dangerous daydreaming in the world of 2010, when not only the world has changed - just check the "Made in China" labels on everything from undershirts to the national debt - but the US has too.  The Palins, Tancredos, and Limbaughs are in denial.

Ms. Palin poked fun at the "hopey changey thing" that inspired people to vote for President Obama, but the truth is that her kind of populism is changeless, and hopeless.  Father Coughlin's rants about Jews were drowned out by repeated re-elections of FDR, the man he called a "betrayer and a liar."  Twenty years later, Senator McCarthy's hounding of some of the same "them" victims was shown for what it was, and he left the public scene in disgrace.

Demagogues and populists.  Can't have one without the other.

Tancredo the Tea Party Crusader

We really do have a culture to pass on to our children: it’s based on Judaeo-Christian values.  This is our country.  Let’s take it back!  Cultures are not the same. Some are better. Ours is best!

Former Congressman Tom Tancredo in "Tea Party Turns Nasty," Times of London 6 February 2010

- - - - - - - - - -

His 11th century namesake Tancred used to enjoy torturing his Muslim captives.  Today, Tom Tancredo is all for carrying holy war to the Saracens.  Except that Tancred's 21st century flag-bearer sees the war starting at home, fearing "Islamification" in "Barack Hussein Obama's" America, stress on middle name.  Tancredo's anti-Islam shtick dovetails nicely with his trademark anti-immigration nativism.  And he calls the President an "ideologue."

Though the Crusades ended about a millennium ago, Tancredo has found plenty of willing conscripts for his battle with non-Judaeo-Christians among the Tea Partyers gathered in Nashville this weekend.

When their opening speaker's official biography takes pride in being labeled the leader of the "House crazies," you know that the Tea Party has an appetite for red meat.  They were apparently well-served.

So, on to the main course, with Tea Party keynote speaker Sarah Palin, who, among her apocalyptic beliefs, thinks that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was "God's plan."  Fellow Americans, please do not let any of these messianic crazies with a mindset in the Middle Ages get anywhere near the Middle East.  Just remember where Tancred's Crusaders wound up - in the sea.

Image: Project Gutenberg

Health Care: Too Big To Fail

Go ahead and swallow the pill

Now that Democrats have had a few hours to weep and gnash teeth over the defeat of their candidate in the Massachusetts election, let's remember this: they still have large majorities in both Senate and House, and both chambers have passed health care reform bills.

The progressive blogosphere is starting to resound with calls of "Pass The Damn Bill" (Steve Benen's Political Animal).   He gives several devastating arguments as to why they should do so, mostly having to do with what might be called sunk costs - having spent so much time and political capital, to abandon health care reform now would be craven cowardice in the face of resurgent Republicans, who after all are the minority party.

Jonathan Chait ("Mass Hysteria") in The New Republic predicts that Democratic lawmakers will come to their senses and pass the bill - or else:

[B]oth chambers have already voted for a bill and set themselves up to be attacked for tax hikes, Medicare cuts and all the rest. The only chance the Democrats have to change that perception is to pass the bill, so that it can be explained in the context of success rather than as a tar baby subjected to endless criticism. If they let it die, they not only keep all the baggage of their votes, but they add a general stench of failure and profound demoralization of the base to their burdens. That would be a recipe not just to lose the House but to lose 50, 60, 80 seats.

I agree with Benen and Chait (Kevin Drum and Josh Marshall say similar things); how can the other important business of the nation be tackled if we don't finally pass the landmark bill of Obama's first year?

But what if this doesn't happen, and the House insists on changes to the Senate Bill?  What if the Republicans, instead of just threatening to filibuster, are made to actually put up or shut up?  The last actual filibuster, apparently (I'm relying on Fox News, not my usual source for facts), was in 1992, during Father Bush's presidency.  Since then, "filibuster" has really meant "threat of filibuster."

So what would happen if the minority of 41 Senators stood in the way of the majority, over an issue of such importance to Americans?  Those 1 million sick person marches that I've been wondering about might have a better chance of getting under way.  People who've lost their insurance because they got sick, and others who've lost coverage because they got fired, maybe they can start showing up in their hundreds of thousands on Republican Filibuster Day.

Enforcing democracy (as opposed to honoring outmoded Senate rules like the filibuster) can be difficult.  More than a century ago, the Speaker of the House, Thomas B. Reed, had to endure cries of "despot, tyrant, dictator, Czar" when he single-handedly ended the practice of the "silent quorum," whereby a party could hold up legislative business simply by its Representatives remaining silent during roll call.  Then, the reformer was a Republican, and the diehards were Democrats.  We need similar intestinal fortitude a century later to kill filibustering.

Today, in his first post-election news conference, Senator-elect Scott Brown sounded conciliatory on health care, which may not come as a surprise, since he voted for Massachusetts' plan as a state senator.  So if Senator 41 is called to filibuster, maybe he can read the Massachusetts health care bill out loud, as a model for Federal legislation.  But wait a minute, it already is.  So what's the problem?

Two choices, Dems: either "pass the damn bill" now, or make the Republicans suffer so much for their filibuster that they filibuster all the way to November.  How will that look to voters?

If Not Obama, Who? If Not Progress, What? Regress?

A fellow expat friend reported back from his trip to the States on the ubiquitous "I Voted for McCain/Palin" mugs in airport souvenir shops.  Maybe that's a function of Washington being such a political town, but I find it odd that the Democratic Party Store online has no equivalent stuff.  You have to go to Democraticstuff.com, a commercial venture, to get anything close, and then the message is mixed: "I Voted For Change" in big print, with Obama/Biden as a footnote.  If you wear that these days, does it mean that you didn't get enough Change, or that it hasn't come fast enough?

Another friend sees Obama as "our last, best, hope" - there it is, Hope, along with Change.  Hard to imagine that it's only a year since the incredible feeling on the Mall, with the hundreds of thousands of people gathered for the historic Inauguration.  Since a Cajun group captured the magic of "Yes We Can" put to zydeco, "Oui, on peut."

Okay, the campaign is over, the election won, and the Inauguration a year ago.  Reality is, well, rather daunting.  But then we said it before the Inauguration, when then President-Elect Obama was in the unenviable position of being The One Who Everyone Is Waiting For, even while there was an actual President still in the White House.  How was Obama going to deal with the legacy left by George W. Bush?  Two wars, one near-Depression, and a national image that was a photo montage of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo?

Back then, Americans knew that the weight of all of these simultaneous crises was going to be almost too much for one man to bear.  A year later, why are many Americans disillusioned?  Why are some Massachusetts Democrats considering venting their frustration by abstaining or even voting Republican?  Did they forget their relief at the election of an honest, intelligent President, a pragmatist who needed to walk his country back from the brink?

During the 2008 Presidential primary campaign, I wrote a post "Trop Beau Pour Toi," a play on the title of a French film from the Eighties.  "Does America Deserve Obama?" was my subtitle.  I have to ask now: who, and of what political stripe, do people think would better be able to tackle the monumental work left to be done?  Climate change and retooling the United States for a resource-challenged future?  Building a resilient society where paying medical bills no longer puts you in the poor house?  Harnessing international cooperation to face the threat of instability in the Middle East?

Are Americans going to jettison someone who can actually inventory the problems, take in world-class opinion, and craft solutions that are workable?  In favor of what - a Sarah Palin or a Rush Limbaugh?  Again, let's go back to that moment in late 2008 or early 2009, when we all recognized the task facing Obama.  How can people even consider bringing back the same crew that brought America Abu Ghraib, sub primes, surplus splurging... the list goes on.  Do you fix that in a year?

"Rome wasn't built in a day," so goes the old saying.  I'd give it eight years.  And Change is an ongoing condition, contrasted with status quo.  And no, I do not want a return to the world as seen by Dick Cheney or as imagined by Sarah Palin. I'll take pragmatic over Paleolithic any day.