Who Hijacked Our Country

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

America’s Prognosis: Guarded

The patient has been suffering from a severe uncontrollable infection for the past eight years. This particularly virulent strain of bacteria had been living in the patient’s intestines for decades, where it remained relatively harmless.

But in early 2001, the bacteria went systemic. This is often fatal. All of the organism’s natural defense mechanisms were overpowered and disabled by this devastating infection. It’s a miracle the patient even survived.

While in the throes of this debilitating sickness, the patient’s symptoms included excruciating pain, spastic movements, nausea, vomiting and explosive diarrhea. To all innocent bystanders who got shat on: Please understand and forgive. Remember, the patient was being attacked by perhaps the most resistant, putrid, pestilent bacteria ever discovered. This abortional behavior could not be controlled.

We’re not out of the woods yet. Some new medication has been prescribed, but it won’t start taking effect until two and a half months from now. We’re looking at a long slow recovery process that will take years; decades even. But I think the patient is going to make it.

cross-posted at Bring It On!

22 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Heh! Seems the voting public just administered a large dose of something good for what ails us.

There will surely be some side effects. Those will be nothing compared to what we've been through.

Suddenly, everything looks better.

November 4, 2008 at 9:07 PM  
Blogger Mauigirl said...

Good analogy!

What a great night!!!

November 4, 2008 at 9:37 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I hope you're right. Given the irrational anger of the 'tards, I think I'll wait to see how it plays out.

November 5, 2008 at 12:27 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

The medicine is en route and that's good enough for now. I'm floating on majestic cloud tom. I'm beside myself!!!

November 5, 2008 at 1:12 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

We can only hope! I'm very relieved it's over, and that sensibility prevailed.

November 5, 2008 at 1:29 AM  
Blogger Enemy of the Republic said...

It's an incredible thing. But we must wait and see. Good riddance to Bush and his ilk.

November 5, 2008 at 4:04 AM  
Blogger Randal Graves said...

Oh, all this cautious optimism is alien to my nature!

November 5, 2008 at 6:16 AM  
Blogger Jim Marquis said...

One of the best nights of my life. I feel like we got our country back.

November 5, 2008 at 7:27 AM  
Blogger Snave said...

A massive enema, much needed, and now hopefully on the way, to be administered soon for dissolving the impacted stool of Bush/Cheney.

Congratulations to Barack Obama and to the Democratic party for all their huge gains of last night. It may take the cretinous knuckledraggers a decade or so to start recovering, if even that soon. Let's do what we can to keep them out of power for a good long while.

Although the situation is still quite dire...

We just need to remember that once we are in the middle of the woods, we are already halfway out.

I am already seeing some light now from the edge of the forest!

Like Jolly mentions, the "irrational anger of the 'tards" factor will provide some hindrances along the way... they aren't going to want things to get better, because then THEY won't look better. As long as we remember that for them everything is all ABOUT them... we can use that to find ways to make things better in getting along with them.

Maybe the "us and them" can gradually fade to where it isn't such the big thing.

For now though, the enema.

November 5, 2008 at 11:41 AM  
Blogger Tom Harper said...

SW: Yes, things are definitely looking better right now.

Mauigirl: Thanks. It sure is a great night.

JR: We all need to watch our backs, no question about that.

Ricardo: Me too. I’ve been walking on air since last night.

Carlos: Relief — that’s the strongest emotion right now.

Enemy: Yup, good F#$%&!# Riddance to those neocon thugs.

Randal: I’m afraid to get too optimistic or unguarded.

J: An excellent night indeed.

Snave: Ah yes, a massive enema, some powerful antibiotics and years of intense physical therapy. Hopefully no surgery will be required. I sure hope the “us and them” mentality will diminish. I don’t even think the late ‘60s were as polarized and hate-filled as these past few years. This mutual hatred has to go (but we do have to watch our backs, as you and JR were saying).

November 5, 2008 at 2:32 PM  
Blogger LET'S TALK said...

Wow! The wicked witch from Texas is almost gone. He has lived up to his past...everything he ever tried to do ended in ruins.

November 5, 2008 at 3:54 PM  
Blogger Mile High Pixie said...

Tom, shouldn't you be hung over right now?! Like I was this morning when my alarm went off at 6am and I went to the gym?

As sick as this sounds, you were one of the first people I thought of when Wolf Blitzer called it at 9pm MST.

November 5, 2008 at 6:19 PM  
Blogger Lew Scannon said...

Fortunately, we were able to stop it before it developed into full blown McCainitis.

November 5, 2008 at 6:40 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I would like to see hyperpartisanship fade, too, but I'm skeptical.

One big reason involves money, not just politics. A large and very profitable industry has grown up around stoking partisan warfare. Fox News and the rest of Murdoch's rotten operations, Sinclair Broadcasting, TBN, Limbaugh and all the little limbaughs, The National Review — the list goes on.

Furthermore, you've got a corps of Atwater-Rove disciples and wannabes who want to move up to the big time. They don't know any other way to operate.

Last but not least, lobbyists for some of the biggest big-money interests in the world see advantage in working off of a deep, wide partisan divide.

Maybe Obama will be able to find some common ground and build on it. I hope so, but will be surprised if it amounts to much or lasts very long.

I hate sounding cynical because I'm not a cynic. But about this, I've seen, read and heard too much over too long a period. The one thing I can think of that might shake it off is a huge calamity — nuclear war or something on that unthinkable scale. Naturally, I don't want to get to less partisanship that way.

November 5, 2008 at 6:59 PM  
Blogger Tom Harper said...

Let's Talk: Yup, the wicked witch is almost dead. We'll still have to keep an eye on him though.

MHP: Thanks for thinking of me. Yup, I did get pretty wasted. I started drinking early in the evening because I was so tense. I figured that if Obama won, I could relax and stop drinking. But then when they announced his victory, I drank to celebrate.

Lew: McCainitis, now that would have been terminal.

SW: It's hard to tell how this will go in terms of non-partisanship and mudslinging. Some of the less extreme Fox/Limbaugh fans (if that isn't an oxymoron) might be ready to unite and start working together.

Limbaugh, for one, got his foothold by being an angry outsider when Clinton was president. But now that he's so entrenched and established, I don't know how good an outsider he could be. He's kind of like the proverbial CEO who started off in the mailroom; going back to the mailroom probably isn't what he's got in mind.

Lobbyists and the Atwater-Rove clones will be a problem. I'm just hoping that at least some of the public is ready to put the hatred and mudslinging aside for the good of the country.

November 5, 2008 at 7:34 PM  
Blogger Miss Kitty said...

An excellent metaphor for what we've been through for the last eight years. Thanks, Tom.

November 6, 2008 at 10:15 AM  
Blogger Mike V. said...

I think we'll make it, too.
No thanks to BushCheney, but I feel better about the USA than I have in a long time.
Wait, does that mean I hate America?
Damn..

November 6, 2008 at 11:24 AM  
Blogger Tom Harper said...

Miss Kitty: Thanks. We've been through a lot in these 8 years, but I think we're gonna recover.

Mike: No, you don't hate America. It's the wingtards who hate America, according to their own slogans. From now on, anybody who criticizes Obama is a flagburning America-hater who needs to be sent to Gitmo.

November 6, 2008 at 11:49 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tom,

Was it problem really the foreign host like they've all been scaring us about and asking us to ante up for?

Or was it really a cancer growing inside?

Erik

November 7, 2008 at 6:05 PM  
Blogger Tom Harper said...

Erik: Those both sound pretty grim. Either way, I hope we're in remission, or have the right antibiotic for the infection, or something.

November 8, 2008 at 1:23 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, I'd love to stay and write a comment, but I really, really gotta go take a Cheney.

November 8, 2008 at 9:42 AM  
Blogger Tom Harper said...

Paul: Hope you still have some of that Bush toilet paper, with Dumbya's picture on every square.

November 8, 2008 at 11:19 AM  

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