From Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, Monday, March 4, 1861:

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

You couldn’t generate better blogging material if you just made this stuff up:

President Bush signaled yesterday that he would add personal investment accounts to the Social Security system, simplify the tax code without raising taxes and cut the budget deficit in half, all before he leaves office in 2009.

Ambitious as those promises are, they may be mathematically impossible, budget and policy analysts say.

“Analysts Call Outlook for Bush Plan Bleak: Too Much Deficit, Not Enough Revenue,” by Jonathan Weisman (Washington Post).

Lots of good comments here. Frankly, I don’t have an articulate response right now. In part because I’m still angry, and in part because I’m currently sleep deprived. But I do know one thing: I find myself torn between the impulse to avoid escalating division and the impulve to engage in scorched-earth rhetoric. It’s difficult at the moment to imagine myself reaching out to those who chose to put this administration back in office for four more years. It’s difficult for me to imagine those voters as thinking people who will respond to efforts at thoughtful communication. Jim captures my feelings when he writes that teaching critical thinking seems to have resulted in millions of people mobilized against critical thinking.

As for the “moral values” meme, we need to stop wringing our hands about how these voters are concerned about morals. What they’re really concerned about are fags, but they’re smart enough to know that you don’t say that to pollsters. Those of us who did not vote for Bush are also concerned about moral values, but we are concerned about a different (and I would argue larger) set of moral values.

Finally, as L point out, the history of slavery in America reminds us that what is right and what is moral are not things you determine by popular vote, and the majority of people in this country have been wrong about very important issues before.

What do we do now? I’m still not sure.

Mayble politically minded pop music will help:

Billy Bragg, “Great Leap Forward”

One leap forward, two leaps back
Will politics get me the sack?

(Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards)

Here comes the future and you can’t run from it
If you’ve got a blacklist I want to be on it

(Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards)

It’s a mighty long way down rock ‘n roll
From Top of the Pops to drawing the dole

(Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards)

If no one seems to understand
Start your own revolution and cut out the middleman

(Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards)

In a perfect world we’d all sing in tune
But this is reality so give me some room

(Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards)

So join the struggle while you may
The Revolution is just a T-shirt away

(Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards)

“U.S. Wants No Warming Proposal: Administration Aims to Prevent Arctic Council Suggestions,” by Juliet Eilperin (Washington Post):

The Bush administration has been working for months to keep an upcoming eight-nation report from endorsing broad policies aimed at curbing global warming, according to domestic and foreign participants, despite the group’s conclusion that Arctic latitudes are facing historic increases in temperature, glacial melting and abrupt weather changes.

This is the first of what I’m sure will be many such stories.

Okay, one more angry entry and then I’m putting my game-face on and trying to figure out what to do now to make a positive difference.

Something that I suspect the residents of Jesusland haven’t thought about (or don’t care about) is the way the rest of the world views America. When I was in Europe this past summer and the summer before, people seemed clear that there was a difference between the American people and their president. There was still a significant amount of sympathy left over from 9/11.

Now, however, I don’t think we can expect the same benefit of the doubt. Having watched the Bush administration in action for the last four years (e.g. backing out of Kyoto, making up reasons for going to war, torturing prisoners of war), we’ve responded, I’ll take some more of that!

We look like a bunch of ignorant thugs.