We've got a new president, everybody!

So the CBS commentators (why do we need commentators for the inauguration?) drew this parrallel between Obama/Biden and Kennedy/Johnson. I find the whole idea idiotic, myself. The only analogy one can draw there is between Obama and LBJ. I also liked how they talked about Johnson being a "political" choice (those of us in the South don't cotton to Yankees, you see), which is true, but it fails to point out that one of the many reasons Kennedy didn't want Johnson as VP was because of the Texan's rabid support for civil rights legislation. LBJ was awesome and Kennedy was a spoiled fuck.

Anyways, I can't really get into this whole Obama-hysteria that swept the American "left" over the past two years. Obama will probably be a good president, but that will depend upon his responses to the coming problems in the world (hopefully he can do it better than his recital of the oath of office).

Obama is going to be faced with an increasingly belligerant (and well-armed) Iran, numerous human-rights crises throughout Africa and the Middle East, and an imperialistic Russia willing to use its oil supplies to secure its interests in Europe. Ultimately, Obama must be judged (as all presidents should be judged) by his ability to spread America's causes (human rights, democracy, human welfare) overseas.

It strikes me as odd that Obama talks about how it is his goal to see the ideal of "all are created equal" accomplished. It seems to me that the left has, over the past few decades, totally abandoned this cause. The cause of universal human rights seems to be lost to both the American and international left. Human rights are advanced within the first-world, but the cause is abandoned whenever it impacts a pet cause. This was displayed fragrantly throughout the Iraq affair (human rights are great for prisoners in Guantanomo, but the Kurds and Shia in Iraq can go to hell).

Maybe it was the association with Bush that did Iraq's human rights cause in. Maybe an association with Obama will make liberal internationalism a renewed cause. But I doubt it.

I don't think Obama's talk of a "new political age" is true at all. The political rules ("Whatever the other side does is automatically wrong") that governed the past two-hundred years still hold.

I suppose that is what is most concerning about Obama's coming term. I worry that he talks about liberal causes, but that he's not willing to back it up with force. I worry that he'll abandon the Kurds to the Turks or the Afghanis to the religious fanatics. Still, I hope that he's willing to fight for those causes, rather than simply talk about it.