Spare Some Change?

I woke up this morning thinking everything would be different, and it wasn’t. Have to say…I’m a little disappointed that our president-elect didn’t live up to his rhetoric. I mean, we still have the housing crisis, the banking crisis, the bailout debacle, trillions of dollars in national debt, a runaway recession, too-high gas prices, a two-front war, and reality television. I expected to be greeted by cartoon birds chirping happily and small forest creatures cavorting on the lawn, where I’d have to dig through a mound of rainbow-colored unicorn poop to get to my paper.

Alas.

Something I do wonder about, though: Everyone kept saying this race wasn’t about race. I heard it from the Right and the Left. Constantly. Everyone kept saying it didn’t matter that Obama was black. It totally wasn’t an issue. Really. Honest.

So why is this election being declared “historic” by everyone? If it wasn’t about race, then we just elected another male politician. No big deal.

But this brings up something I want to bitch about. I don’t know who started it, but the tendency to use the phrase “an historic” election/occasion/etc. annoys the shit out of me. We’re not Cockney, people! We pronounce the ‘H’ at the front of that word. That means you use “a”, not “an”. It’s an hour of a history class. No one is going around saying “an” halibut, so quit saying “an” historical whatever.

The Left has been reveling in the tears of the Republicans all day, and that’s fine. They’ve been choking on their rage for eight years, so they need the catharsis. The Republicans are predicting all sorts of horrific consequences, but honestly, you probably could have made the same predictions if McCain had won. There is no difference between the parties any more. I’m sure we’ll see the Left blaming Bush’s policies for anything that goes wrong in the Obama administration the next four years, just like the Right blamed Clinton’s policies for all of the crap that happened on Bush’s watch. It’s human nature to take credit for all of the good stuff, and find a scapegoat for all of the mistakes.

One particular piece of change I do expect immediately is the cessation of anyone claiming that the white man is holding them back. We’ve have just proven that that is not the case. I also expect Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to have to go out and get real jobs now, which is why, I suspect, Jesse was really crying last night.