Guilty until proven innocent

My vow (and one I hope you'll consider as well): if a Democrat wins the presidency in 2008, no matter who it is, I'll consider them guilty until proven innocent.  I'll give them zero benefit of the doubt.  I won't feel one shred of hope or optimism about their impending time in power, and in fact I'll expect the worst.  I'll take every positive thing they say as a lie and every negative thing they say as an understatement.

After they assume office, there's only one thing that will make me consider changing my mind on this: concrete actions on major issues that indisputably contradict it.  And even then I'll assume that each good action is sui generis—improbable to have happened in the first place and unlikely to be repeated.

This isn't a prediction (though in light of American history, especially over the past few decades, it may as well be).  It's also neither pessimism nor hopelessness.  It's a recognition that lofty rhetoric not only has the power to blind us to what really matters, but that practically without exception in mainstream politics, that's exactly what it's intended to do.  It's an acknowledgment that those who seek power almost universally do so at the expense of their integrity and to the detriment of their humanity, and that to allow ourselves to lose sight of that is to participate in our own deception.

True hope comes from below—not from above.

Comments

[petey]

however, you're still focusing on democrats.

[SteveB]

True hope comes from below—not from above.

Exactly. I wrote much the same thing, using only about 800 additional words, here, in response to the "Yes we can" Obama video.

Yes, like a billion other people, I now have a blawg.

[John Caruso]

petey: That's because this was written specifically for people who are focused on them. I couldn't give a tinker's dam about the Democrats myself, but they're the source of the fog that shrouds the minds of even the most well-intentioned liberals.

Steve: It's about time. And if I actually managed to be pithier than you one time out of 100, I'm happy with that.

[SteveB]

"Pithy" is good, right?

[John Caruso]

If you read it as "precisely meaningful; forceful and brief," yes. If you take it as "consisting of or resembling pith," though, hard to say.

[Jonathan Versen]

Strikes me as pretty reasonable-- Gravel is the only active candidate I'd give the benefit of the doubt, but needless to say he's like a little sandpiper facing a foul tidal wave of corporate money and self-absorbed democratic voters eager to feel good about themselves by voting for a broad or a black guy.

[ms_xeno]

Broad ?

Who let Damon Runyan in here ?

[John Caruso]

Uh oh...this kitten's got claws!

[ms_xeno]

Look deep into my eyes, ya' mugs !