A Breath of Fresh Air

It was my friend Olivia on the phone. "Did you see it?" she asked, in an excited voice.

"Yes, I did!" I responded, in a tone which matched hers.

"It" was President-elect Obama's press conference today. It was as refreshing as six hours at the seaside for the both of us.

The man stood there and spoke in complete sentences. Without folksy euphemisms. He spoke with intelligence, with knowledge, with a plan. He looked comfortable in front of the microphone. He announced his new economic team, and talked about his plans for helping to fix the economy. He told us that it was going to take a long time and he talked about the need of all of us to work together to rebuild what we have lost. He talked like he was talking from a place of understanding, not just from written notes on a cue card that he didn't understand, and often couldn't pronounce correctly.

When was the last time that happened with a president? Eight years?

And then he did something even stranger....he took questions from the press. Tough questions. He answered each without being evasive. When someone asked a question, he addressed that question and didn't start throwing in talking points because he didn't know the answer to the question. He gave complete answers, and then expounded on those answers, further laying out his plans.

I repeat -- when was the last time that happened with a president? Eight years?

It's interesting that in addressing the current crisis, everyone seems to be hanging on the words of the incoming president -- and who cares what the guy in the White House thinks? I have lived a long time. I was born during the Truman administration so I've seen ten presidents leave office, even one who left in disgrace. Never have I seen such a nonentity as this president. While the country turns to Obama for answers to the financial crisis, we see pictures of W donning strange clothing and posing for a photo op in some foreign country, with that same dumb grin on his face. And of course Darth Cheney is nowhere to be found at all....except maybe working on his defense for his indictment with Alberto Gonzalez in Texas.

But the never-satisfied press is already hard at work. I've heard Chris Matthews rant and rave about Obama's lack of activity. "The economy is tanking--and where is Obama in all of this?" he might shout, forgetting that this is not yet Obama's crisis to fix, that he has no authority to do anything, that he wants to take his time to get it right before he is inaugurated, that there is a guy nominally in charge who is supposed to be the point person for answers.

Then today comes the announcement and the commentators on MSNBC were wondering about whether this might be seen as overstepping his bounds because he's not yet president and that the currrent president is still in charge.

I don't know why anybody wants to be president. No matter what you do, someone is going to think it's wrong...and get a team of "experts" to talk about the terrible thing you have just done endlessly.

I just hope that as President-elect Obama moves into the White House and begins to use the power of the office to begin working on his vision for how to get the economy rolling again, and to solve the Middle East situation, that there will be fewer and fewer things to complain about.

At the very least, we will finally have a President that doesn't make us cringe whenever he takes a microphone, who embarrasses us in foreign countries, and who has so little respect for the form of government set up by the founding fathers -- who only proved that no matter how careful you are, NOTHING is entirely "fool" proof!

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My little retarded puppy is becoming entirely too smart for my own good! She has decided, apparently that two meals a day isn't enough and she wants more. How do I know this? Because she's taken to running to the bin (a small garbage can) where I keep the dog food in the middle of the day, standing up against it and barking and barking and barking until I come and dole some dry food out into a pan for her. Breakfast and dinner are canned food mixed with dry (and a couple of chunks of pineapple, which I am starting to feel cautiously optimistic about). I figure if she was really hungry, dry food would be OK for a mid-afternoon snack.

She scarfed the thing down like I hadn't fed her in a week. She already eats as much as Lizzie and then goes around and finishes any food that Lizzie or Sheila might have left behind. This little girl is starting to develop an appetite like a St. Bernard. But I also notice that she is growing. Her legs are definitely getting longer, so I'm assuming that this sudden increase in appetite is to help her keep up with the growth spurt.

Either she has improved so drastically that she is now more like a "normal" puppy...or she's been here so long and I'm so used to her quirks that I don't even notice them any more.

Now if only we could get the elimination habits regulated.....