I cannot claim credit for this, and I certainly don't want to. It was just too good not to share.
I saw a reference and link to it on one humor site, Fark, and it led me to the original on another humor site, 23/6. There is great truth in humor, and of all the election post-mortems I have heard and read today, this one rings truest of all:
Speaking of Bush, it is clear now, if it wasn't before, what his legacy is going to be: Obama.
Bush will be known for ushering in the Obama era, the way Herbert Hoover was known for ushering in FDR or Pete Best was known for preceding Ringo.
Indulge me as I elaborate on the flip.
I'm 52 years old, and I have spent a lot of time today remembering the election of 1980. I was 24 then, and for literally half of my life, I had been waiting for the wounds of 1968 to heal. First Martin, then Bobby. A 12-year-old kid's hope for a better, more just world had been crushed. But it had not been totally obliterated.
That happened in 1980. I was a journalist, supposed to be all crusty and cynical and above it all. But I still wanted to believe, to hope. Then I saw Ronald Reagan get elected. I was astounded that that glib, oily huckster had managed to fool enough of the people, enough of the time, to actually be elected President of the United States.
We all know what happened from there. Kindly old Uncle Ron made strident, intolerant extremism -- and greed, let's not forget greed -- not just palatable, but downright warm and fuzzy.
They called Ronald Reagan a two-bit B-grade actor, but they were so wrong. He gave the performance of a lifetime, and it halted our society's climb to betterment dead in its tracks. We never got a chance to recover, to heal, from 1968; as a nation, we have wandered in the desert for 40 years.
What did George W. Bush ultimately accomplish? Something truly wonderful, if totally unintended. The ham-handed incompetence of his administration, and his inability to hide the meanness and pettiness that infected his personality, did what no politician, no journalist, nobody had managed to do for almost three decades.
Bush pulled back the curtain from Reaganist Conservatism and revealed the ugliness, hate and greed at its core. It was only after people turned away from Bush in horror and disgust that they were able to turn toward Barack Obama and give life to hope once again.
The greatest irony of all is that the man reviled as the Liar-in-Chief revealed the truth, at long last, about the philosophy he had embraced.
So now it really is morning in America again. We now return to our regularly scheduled path to the Promised Land, the trail blazed by Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy 40 years ago.