International Law

A post on the US election

So much has been already written about the extraordinary US election on Tuesday and President-elect Barack Obama's historic and meteoric rise, that I know there is nothing further I could add.  But before I move on and blog about other topics and issues, I thought I'd link to a couple of different things related to the election that have grabbed my attention over the past few days, ranging from the serious to the not so serious.

First up is Judith Warner's poignant piece for the New York Times, "Tears to Remember":

I will admit that back in January, when Barack Obama, in his post-Iowa victory speech, spoke about the ?cynics,? the ?they? who said ?this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose,? he was talking about me.

I will admit that the call of ?change? did not speak to me as an achievable goal.

Until it actually came.

On Wednesday, there was a run on newspapers, as voters rushed to grab a tangible piece of the history they?d made. My husband Max and I, unable to find extra copies, brought our own worn papers home to 8- and 11-year-old Emilie and Julia.

Sept. 11, the seismic event that we?d feared would forever form their political consciousness, shaping their world and constricting the boundaries of the possible, had actually been eclipsed, light blotting out darkness, the best of America at long last driving away the demons of fear. We wanted them to see that it was the end of an era.

...

Two images will forever stay in my mind to mark this epoch-breaking Election Day. One is that of Jesse Jackson?s face, drenched in tears, in Chicago?s Grant Park on Tuesday evening.

And the other is a photo that ran in The Times on Wednesday. In it, a black mother and daughter sit on the floor of a church in Harlem. The mother, Latrice Barnes, having heard of Obama?s victory, is doubled up in tears; her daughter, Jasmine, is reaching a tentative hand up to soothe her. To me, she looks like the future, reaching out to heal the past.

At the First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008, Latrice Barnes, right, is comforted by her daughter Jasmine Redd, 5. (David Goldman for The New York Times)

It is, I suppose, in part a matter of temperament, whether one shouts or weeps at happy transformative moments. But I also think it?s a matter of what has come before. The young people joyfully frolicking in front of the Bush White House never knew the universe whose passing was marked by Obama?s victory and Jackson?s tears.

This moment of triumph marks the end of such a long period of pain, of indignity and injustice for African-Americans. And for so many others of us, of the trampling and debasing of our most basic ideals, beliefs that we cherished every bit as deeply and passionately as those of the ?values voters? around whose sensibilities we?ve had to tiptoe for the past 28 years.

The election brought the return of a country we?d lost for so long that it was almost forgotten under the accumulated scar tissue of accommodation and acceptance.

For me, this will be the enduring memory of election night 2008: One generation released its grief. The next looked up confusedly, eager to please and yet unable to comprehend just what the tears were about.

Read more here.  It really is a new day:

Although the world is very pleased that Barack Obama will be the next US President, it is also appropriate to reflect and pay tribute to John McCain, as John Macintyre did in his superb piece for The Times, "John McCain: a man who fought and lost with honour":

I am glad Mr McCain was defeated. By almost every measure, he was the lesser candidate. When the economy faltered, so did he. His claim to greater experience shrivelled in the light of his rival's blinding charisma. McCain was yesterday and Obama is tomorrow.

Yet as the new President heads to the White House in a blaze of adulation, it is worth recalling just how worthy an opponent he faced: history offers few more admirable presidential failures than Mr McCain.

...

A McCain presidency would probably have been divisive, aggressive and dangerously short-lived. He is a flawed figure, but he remains a civilised politician in an age of uncivilised politics. The world is a safer, more hopeful place without John McCain in the White House; but the world is a better place for having men such as him in it.

Read more here (from The Times).  The Weekly Standard also paid tribute to McCain:

In politics, as one suspects in life, no good deed goes unpunished. John McCain staked everything on success in Iraq. He advocated the surge publicly and made the case for it privately. He defended it passionately and intelligently, and was indispensable in beating back critics, shoring up nervous supporters, and keeping enough public support for the surge so the Democratic party's repeated efforts to abort it failed.

The surge worked. It worked better than even its proponents expected. The strategic and moral calamity of an American withdrawal in defeat from the central front in the war on Islamic jihadism was averted. The positive outcome of a reasonably stable, democratic, and friendly Iraq is now in sight. Thanks in large part to John McCain, we did not have a second Vietnam-like humiliation. Thanks in large part to John McCain, the United States is on the verge of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

And as a result of the remarkable progress in Iraq over the past two years--progress whose possibility was scoffed at and whose reality was then denied by all leading Democrats except Joe Lieberman--Iraq faded as an issue in the presidential race. And with it, the critical question of who should be commander in chief also receded. By the fall of 2008, McCain got no credit for one of the great acts of statesmanship by a senator--let alone a senator who was also a presidential candidate--in American history. President Obama will now be able to draw down in an orderly manner, following (we trust) the guidance of Generals Petraeus and Odierno--generals who consulted with McCain often and whose achievement McCain helped make possible.

John McCain said repeatedly that he'd rather lose an election than lose a war. We ended up winning a war, and he ended up losing the election. It's not quite the cosmic injustice of the British electorate rejecting Churchill in 1945--but it's no small injustice either.

Read more here.  Meanwhile Politco is already speculating on who the Republican candidate will be in 2012.  But before we get too obssessed about the next Presidential cycle, Mark Newman has some fascinating maps of the 2008 Presidential election.

There has also been quite a bit written about election night itself.  CNET put together a fun list of the top 10 election tweets worth remembering, including:

7. Los Angeles-based twitterer Bill Palmer noticed that literally everyone caught election fever: homeless guy on Hollywood Blvd with a sign that says "Obama aint the only one who wants change"--now that's clever.

Read the full list here.  And of course, much has been said about CNN's ridiculous holograms:

So, how are we going to kill time online now that the election is over?  Well, Slate has some ideas, including:

Watch CollegeHumor. When all else fails, turn to funny videos. The Web is full of them, and new ones come out every day?just head to Digg, FunnyOrDie, the Onion, or BuzzFeed for the latest and greatest.

One suggestion: If you missed "You Suck at Photoshop," the 20-episode Web series in which a disaffected loser dishes about his miserable life as he tries to teach you how to edit photos, stop reading this and watch it immediately. (Note the mysterious celebrity cameo in the final episode, which just hit the Web last week.) After that, head over to CollegeHumor.com, which for my money produces the funniest videos on the Web. As the name implies, CollegeHumor deftly traverses the line between the clever and the sophomoric?it knows every pot-smoking joke you can think of, but it's also got a mean way with Internet memes. (See Professor Wikipedia or this much-passed-around clip imagining a business meeting of the kind of people who write comments on blogs.) My favorite CollegeHumor series is this incredibly cruel prank-war between two of the site's regular performers. The whole thing's true?these guys really pulled these pranks. They start off innocently enough but over time escalate into a battle so big that it's kind of sad. But mostly it's hilarious.

You can read some Slate's other ideas here, but it seems as though laughter is the way to go:

Full post as published by Freedom to Differ on November 10, 2008 (boomark / email).