http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=757896 Text Message from the Road The Triumph of Reality in the Age of Bull (an Age That Has Been Good to Me) by John Hodgman
I have been exhausted since the election. I went back on book tour, smelling of planes, barely able to follow the Maddow and The Daily Show and the many blogs that had been my full-time job until recently. I have been alone in the strange monastery of constant travel. Thus, the actualness of the election only seeps in from time to time. Seeing the words "President-Elect Obama" on the USA Today in front of the hotel-room door as I step over it. Catching fractured bits and takes of the news on the flat screens scattered around the airport, like a hundred mirrors reflecting something I can't see. I feel a little hollowed out and amazed it's all over. Generally, I make jokes for a living. I make up fake facts for my books and The Daily Show. I lie. But the Obama campaign tempted me toward stultifying sincerity. I yearned for an Obama victory not so much because of any particular policy, though I agree with most of his, and not so much because of his personality, though he seems like the sort of person I'd like to watch Battlestar Galactica with. Rather, he appealed to the geek in me—not in his tastes (he likes sports), but in his seeming commitment to reality. Even though I've profited from it, I haven't entirely joyously been riding the make-stuff-up-and-say-it-with-a-straight-face wave. As I have written on the internet, the last eight years have been dominated by a kind of jocklike bluster, on both sides of the aisle. We attempted to win a war with a hopeful banner. Both Hillary Clinton and John McCain campaigned with all the logic of a Successories poster: that they could will their presidency into being simply by desiring it. That no matter how behind they were by every real-world metric, they could still win the big game by wishing it so. On the plane today, I have been reading Newsweek, trying to catch up. (Have you heard of it? It is something called a magazine, and you don't need to turn it off when you're flying.) I read that on the night of the New Hampshire primary, John McCain booked the same room that he had back when he won New Hampshire in 2000, out of superstition. He also wore the same sweater, and carried a lucky penny and "an Indian feather." I have never been more relieved to know that he is not our president. Obama, meanwhile, did the most geeky thing possible: He worked the math, Spock-like. While many would try to anoint him a liberal savior, he showed himself a pragmatist, even when it was painful. His compromise (some say "caving") on telecom immunity on FISA was queasying to the liberal blogosphere, but would we really have wanted to trade an Obama presidency for a lawsuit against AT&T? His defense of Donnie McClurkin singing his gay-recovery gospel at an Obama event was disappointing, but his underlying point—that we can't address homophobia in churches simply by ignoring it—now seems all the more urgent after Proposition 8. And while some tried to damn him a commie terrorist, the efforts were crumpled by reality, the common sense of his positions, the simple sincerity of his smile—the first smile in politics I ever thought was real. When the results came in, it felt like the sun coming up: a pleasant relief after a long, long night. As it continues to come up, we will feel the magic and happiness of this week ebb. Some days we will be happy with Obama and some days we won't. But at least he is not walking around with a feather in his pocket. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Like TV only smarter. You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
