What Obama said to the Muslim world in his inaugural address, he could have just as well said to the Republican Party, “People will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.”

Cenk Uygur, of the Young Turks, at HuffPo.

Like I’ve said before … G.O.P., it’s easy to sit back and fling poo, but what do you stand FOR???

About freaking time!!!

Yeah, yeah … Pat Quinn gets the job if Blago gets canned. We know that. But what about Mackaman 2010???

Forget that!!! I mean, he’d be great as mayor again. However, there’s a much more important office for him to take on, assuming Blago gets his just desserts … governor of Illinois!

Mackaman would be the perfect choice. He’s extremely competent, even-tempered and familiar with the intricacies of governance. He did a fantastic job putting Pekin back on the right track after the Lyn Howard debacle. Who better to fix Illinois?

It’s not fiscal conservatism. They supported the most massive expansion of government since LBJ and ran our government by running up the national credit card.

It’s not social conservatism, family values or strict constructionist interpretation of the Constitution. Just look at the sex scandals (Craig, Foley, etc etc etc), corruption scandals (Stevens, DeLay, etc etc etc), and carte-blanc support of torture & wiretapping.

What does the Republican Party stand FOR?

Abortion is bad. Oh, and they don’t want gay people to get married.

Wait a minute … those are things that Republicans are AGAINST. Other than getting re-elected and maintaining political power for themselves and their privileged cronies, what do Republicans stand FOR???

Cue the crickets.

Illinois is experiencing interesting political highs and lows this year. One of our U.S. Senators is elected president, but then our governor is arrested before he can sell Obama’s Senate seat to the highest bidder.

I “love” this quote in the Tribune from Robert Grant, FBI special agent in charge of the Chicago office:

If [Illinois] isn’t the most corrupt state in the United States, it’s certainly one hell of a competitor. Even the most cynical agents in our office were shocked.

Isn’t that nice?

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It’s the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.

It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled – Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.

President-Elect Barack Obama

Text courtesy of the LA Times.

Schock’s story is clearly exceptional. He finished his college degree in two years. He was elected to the District 150 school board as a write-in candidate at age 19. He’s been President of the District 150 Board of Education, State Representative for the Illinois 92nd District, and now Republican candidate for the United States House of Representatives in the 18th District at age 27. No one can deny Aaron Schock has a remarkable resume.

So why won’t I vote for this Golden Boy? The answer is precisely that … he’s a Golden Boy. I have no doubt that Aaron Schock worked very hard for what he has accomplished. However, that does not change the fact that he was born with and provided every advantage by his well-to-do family. It does not change the fact that his entire adult life has been spent holding some sort of public office, and that each position was held with a blatantly obvious eye toward the next rung on the ladder of political power. It does not change the fact that Schock’s wealth derives entirely from investments, not a salary like most folks in this country. While the success of those investments was undoubtedly born of his intelligence and ingenuity, his well-placed connections certainly didn’t hurt.

I’m not voting for Aaron Schock because his life is COMPLETELY divorced from the lives of ordinary Illinoisans. He cannot possibly sympathize or understand the trials and tribulations of Joe Average. The lives of the impoverished and the middle class are totally alien to him, yet they are precisely the people that need help the most. He might mean very well. Aaron Schock’s intentions could be truly noble, but his sympathies will be with the wealthy developers and the failed mantra of trickle-down economics.

Aaron Schock cannot possibly represent the people of the 18th Congressional District in any true sense, and that’s why I won’t be voting for him.

Answer – hubris, the same tragic flaw that felled Achilles in the Iliad.

John McCain is no Achilles. He didn’t stand a chance against the overwhelming power of his own ego.

Steve Greenberg Cartoons, Ventura County Star.

[...] the idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t extend to Americans being exceptional. If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song. The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.

Maureen Down, New York Times

What we are witnessing may be the greatest destruction of financial wealth that the world has ever seen — paper losses measured in the trillions of dollars. Corporate wealth. Oil wealth. Real estate wealth. Bank wealth. Private-equity wealth. Hedge fund wealth. Pension wealth. It’s a painful reminder that, when you strip away all the complexity and trappings from the magnificent new global infrastructure, finance is still a confidence game — and once the confidence goes, there’s no telling when the selling will stop.

Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post

The economy is fundamentally sound, Senator McCain? Forget Sarah Barracuda. It’s the economy, stupid!

Everyone who has read my posts knows that I can’t stand the current incarnation of the Republican Party. The modern GOP is a far cry from the Party of Lincoln. Their fiscal conservatism is a joke, and their slide toward theocracy is frightening.

However, I’m also quite disappointed in the Democratic Party, especially in Illinois. I remain a strong supporter of Barack Obama for president, but the corruption and arrogance of the Blagojevich administration disgusts me. The petty power struggles and gamesmanship in Springfield disgust me. It’s never good when one party has a lock on power for too long, and the Chicagocrats have been way too comfortable in their seats for way too long.

The Modern Whig Party may offer us the middle road that I think a lot of Americans are craving. I’ll be watching closely.

Hat Tip: Peoria’s Blogfather.

Hat Tip: Andrew Sullivan.