So it IS Political

I have tried to avoid political blogging for the last year because I get so passionate about politics that I tend occasionally to harangue, scream and shout, sometimes even beyond the bounds of reason and argument (and Argumentation is a subject that I taught for some twenty of so of my forty years in the classroom.) The election is over and my guy lost (whom I supported even though he wasn't my first choice). He lost, and the guy whom I predicted to win, over a year ago, just on the basis of his amazing rhetorical skills won. I wasn't thrilled to be right.

I still have to say, that now that he is elected, he is my president. I will try as well as I can not to scream and shout about him as he does (and I'm sure he will) things that frighten me, irritate me and violate my personal sense of order, but I respect and honor my president. I was thrilled when, near the end of his term, I saw Jimmy Carter (who went from being one of the worst governors in Georgia history to being one of the worst presidents in U.S. history) on the streets of Atlanta.

Lyndon Johnson was a president who just drove me BANANAS, even though his Great Society package, one of the worst conceived political programs in history, and one that, I am convinced did more to put the black population of the U.S. in a subservient mentality than almost anything since the civil war except the misnamed "separate but equal" schooling policies in southern schools, and provided me with a significant improvement in my living status as a doctoral graduate assistant in Illinois (I had the opportunity to teach folks under that program at a slightly higher income than my regular teaching assistantship.)

That having been said, one of the great thrills of my life occurred when I took my family to the World's fair in New York and traffic was stopped in Connecticut to allow a presidential traffic column to cross our path. The presidential limousine passed directly in front of our car, and my heart beat faster as the silhouette of Johnson' enormous head (and it was enormous) passed before us and I shouted to my wife and kids, "Look that is the President of the United States, you may never get another chance to see the President in person."

I am sure that I will feel the same way if I ever see President Obama in person even though I am sure that I will go to bed muttering about him with some frequency. He will still be the President of the United States, and MY President as long as he is in office, and at this point my prayers are with him.