Liberal Talk Radio

It’s not every morning that you wake up knowing that the world will be a different place when you go to bed. Most times, these things are surprises, known only to a few. Maybe tonight we can know a little of what it felt to be Yamamoto or the 20 Underemployed and Sexually Frustrated Socio-Paths (that’s how you translate “martyr” from Arabic, right? … maybe I’ve got my dialect wrong). Only this decision is in our hands, and let us all hope that the results are a lot less tragic. Then again, Karl Rove does work for Bush …

Still, it’s inescapable that tomorrow is such a day. While it’s true that there’s not really a substantial difference between Kerry and El Jefe on specific policies (c.f. the extended conversation Bruno and I had about this on last week’s show), it’s undeniable that there’s a feeling in the air — this is the moment when America decides who it wants to be. We’re like a kid deciding between going away to college or staying home and taking some classes at the local JuCo. Do we want to grow up or hold on to childhood as long as possible? Only the potential consequences are so much more terrible …

And so tomorrow is at once terrible and hopeful. Will America do the right thing and elect the leader who can, if not deliver us from the disgraceful mess of the last four years, at least turn the tiller in a way that a favorable wind might catch? Or will we show ourselves a country hopelessly lost, victim to our own historical isolationism and a public school system that inculcates 51% of our children with pedantic, proto-fascist, patriotic reductionism?

Tuesday, November 2 2004 will be a great day in the history of this nation. Let us pray tonight that it will also be a good one.

Go Kerry!