HOPE FLOATS

Since The Original Average Man (TOAM) recently made reference to Naomi Klein's funny and insightful article in which she assigns hope-based terms to disappointed Obamaniacs, I was inspired to make a couple comments of my own ...

Like many Obama fans, it seems that TOAM woke up this morning with a nasty Hopover; defined as:

Like a hangover, a hopeover comes from having overindulged in something that felt good at the time but wasn't really all that healthy, leading to feelings of remorse, even shame. It's the political equivalent of the crash after a sugar high. Sample sentence: "When I listened to Obama's economic speech my heart soared. But then, when I tried to tell a friend about his plans for the millions of layoffs and foreclosures, I found myself saying nothing at all. I've got a serious hopeover."

Okay, maybe I'm still a little drunk on the Obama Kool-Aid, but I'm not quite there yet. Although, I do admit to being on a little bit of a Hoper coaster lately. At any rate, just to show that I'm not completely in the tank for Barack, I am jumping on Naomi's quest to banish Larry Summers from public life. I have to admit that I didn't know much about the guy before this election, but the more I learn, the more queasy I get. In fact, I'm currently in the middle of Ms. Klien's awesome book The Shock Doctrine, and it seems that Larry's embracing of "disaster capitalism" goes quite a ways back. And here's part what Naomi Klien says about him in this recent column:

... that's the problem with Larry. For all his appeals to absolute truths, he has been spectacularly wrong again and again. He was wrong about not regulating derivatives. Wrong when he helped kill Depression-era banking laws, turning banks into too-big-to-fail welfare monsters. And as he helps devise ever more complex tricks and spends ever more taxpayer dollars to keep the financial casino running, he remains wrong today.

So, yes, I'm still in love with the idea of hopey. But let's call a duck and duck: Summers smells fowl, and I hope he gets kicked off the island.

Having said that, though, my other great hope is that my lefty friends aren't running their feelings through the InstaHope-A-Matic and won't soon develop Hopelash.

Peace Out.

TL