C'mon, Cassandras! Do you want to live forever? Let's suck it up and get moving.

This started out as a comment to VL's horror fable about Obama's inaugural speech. But then, if only because of sheer length, I thought I'd turn this into a post that responds to Booman. Assuming, arguendo, the inevitability of Obama....

I suppose what I'm guessing (maybe hoping) is that Obama, like Dean, had no idea what he was unleashing.

Being too... Well, let's not say cynical but experienced. If the average member of the OFB is, say, 23, that means they were 16 when Florida 2000 was stolen -- practically, for them, a lifetime ago.

Being too experienced, there is almost no oratory to which I would react as the OFB does to Obama's oratory, or as poor Ezra did. (What was he thinking? Answer: Wrong question. The right question is What was he thinking with?)

You know, I know, we all know that, regarded as content, Obama's Unity message is at best vacuous and at worst harmful.

But education is very, very difficult, and can't be done in the middle of an election campaign, I would say. Particularly if we don't have the right demographic for the students.

So what is to be done?

I would say that our role in 2008 is and should be similar to our role during the runup to the Iraq war: We can tell the narrative, though shiny and new, is crap--after all, plenty of crap is shiny and new--so let's start laying the groundwork now for the time when the odor of crapulence can't be waved away any more.

[OFB PROPHYLACTIC: I don't mean that Obama or his supporters are crap, but that the "unity" and "hate Hillary" narratives in which they are invested are both well-understood crap, and moreover crap we've tried to flush out (and with the Social Security crap, thought we had flushed out).

You could think of this is a refinement of Obama's message: "Hope" for the best, but plan for the worst.

So, no, the blogosphere did not win the Iowa caucuses. FWIW, and I can't prove it, I think we did play our part, as analysts and shock troops, in winning election 2006, which laid the groundwork for the Iowa caucuses.

And so, BooMan has a point the sour grapes thing, but I know for me it's a little off. 2000,2002,2004,2006.... There's definitely a God telling Moses "No promised land for you" thing going on (Deut 34:4). But there's also sadness in seeing youthful joy, and remembering how youthful illusions play out.

However, what I truly regret about the Obama tide is not that a candidate lost--boil down the OFB "sour grapes" talking point to "Your guy lost, get over it"--but the right wing talking points won: The talking points Obama sometimes uses, and that the OFB constantly uses. (The idea that the Obama "movement" is generational is itself a right wing talking point developed at great length in the pages of The Atlantic by right wing pundit Andrew Sullivan. Could there have been a reason for that?)

The right wing talking points set my teeth on edge, and not only because fighting and killing them has been the hard work of many years. Now, zombie like, they rise again, given new life by.... a charismatic Democrat. Sigh.

But, as CD says, politics are a blood sport, and given that the bubble of disinformation the Village has constructed includes almost everyone--there's "unity" for you--Obama can hardly be blamed for using whatever language he can to connect with his voters, and at necessarily at the absolute lowest common denominator ("unity" again).

Unfortunately, the right wing gun Obama's using in this hunt is going to blow up in his face at some point, and not because of a few dirty hippies, but because right wing talking points reinforce right wing power. I hope Obama can square the circle on that one with oratory, because I'm, foolishly, perhaps, not completely cynical about the man, but I very much doubt that he can.

NOTE Oh, and I just send Edwards $50. We need somebody who actually understands and can articulate what our problems really are.

UPDATE Oh, the hexagram. Lest it be perceived as a Chinese translation of "You kids get offa my yard," I offer the following:

The teacher must wait to be sought out instead of offering himself. ... Given in addition a perseverance that never slackens until the points are mastered one by one, real success is sure to follow. Thus the hexagram counsels the teacher as well as the pupil.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.