The Guarding of the Change

I fought it all day. I focused on things like this (a splendid article, about which I intend to blog soon). I lingered on the joy and satisfaction which my friends were experiencing (that one came the closest to working). I pondered the wonder of the peaceful, seamless transition of power in our Republic, and looked into the earnestly well-wishing, gracious, and satisfied yet wistful face of our outgoing President as he handed over the keys.

All to little effect. Today, I have decided, I shall surrender to the impulse to be a sourpuss about our new POTUS.

This is not a difficult place to come to, mind you. The endless hagiographic swooning by a media whose indecently, leg-tinglingly transparent bias had no small hand in this election's outcome fills me with nausea. The transports of vacuous ecstasy in the faces of pampered celebrities (many of whom would likely fare worse on a basic civics quiz than a fair number of migrant workers in a California vineyard) have made me seriously consider revising my quaint notions of intellectual property and looking to hitherto-eschewed bittorrents. The earnest gum-flapping of assorted congresscritters on matters of "bipartisanship" (after years of hyperpartisan derangement) in This New Era have induced almost tourettes-like eruptions of random bile which appear to have aroused sincere concern in the face of my dog.

All around, there are breathless perorations about how All Things Are Possible Now, piquant prognostications about the end of divisiveness and the mending of our Nation, yadda-yadda...all of which sound unnervingly like conclusions in search of premises. More than anything, it appears that the American and international media have circled the wagons against anything which might threaten to pierce the bubble on which the One has drifted to his apotheosis.

For today, at least, I remain largely unmoved. The very notion that a government figure can solve our problems is offensive to me. That an eloquent but untried government figure might, by dint of the sheer force of his personality cash the checks that all of his allies in the Fourth Estate have helped him to write leaves me sputtering and gagging.

Tomorrow may be different. Indeed, I know myself well enough to have faith that a more equitable blend of kudos and criticisms will ultimately prevail (in the end, I know that I am not That Guy...you know, the one who stands in his bathrobe, intermittently barking obscenities at the radio). No Obama Derangement Syndrome for me.

For today, however, secure in this knowledge, I have chosen to indulge myself in an orgiastic bender of grumbling misanthropy. As ever, your mileage may vary.