Beauty is Imperfection

(Originally posted Thursday, January 22, 2009)

If you found yourself, on January 20, embittered, unable to enjoy the rapturous feelings of millions of Americans who felt delivered into a brave new era of tolerance, justice and hope, then you’re not alone. There are dozens and dozens of people like you. People who are skeptical. People who see the glass not only as half empty, but pretty much 51% empty.

Maybe you are communist who feels let down that Ralph Nader has once again come just a few votes short of clinching the Oval Office, whence he would begin to dismantle Starbucks and General Motors. Maybe you are a conservative who feels that you have been marginalized after your kind held so much unthinkable power for so long and made everything so much better when you did. Maybe you are a Hillary Clinton hold-out who believes quite accurately that Obama’s election was a slap at all women, demeaning your sex and sending you into a horrifying new era of housewifery and whoredom.

Perhaps you are a white person who resents Obama’s rock star presence, and thus you cannot think of him as anything other than a rock star, which, upon further thinking leads you to suspect that he has no real talents, like the rock star in the “Money For Nothing” song. You’re right! He doesn’t. He has no credentials at all!

That’s why you and dozens like you are struggling to find meaning in this new Obama world. You are philosophically adrift. You are acting out. You are calling others naive. You are calling them stupid. You are calling them sexists. Racists. Terrorists. Murderers. Vivisectionists. Remember, this is absolutely not psychological projection. You are absolutely right. You must believe that your feelings are real and you must lash out at anybody who does not share them.

You, dear friend, are an Obama hater. But of course, there are so many of you–again, dozens and dozens–that sometimes it might be hard for you to tell each other apart. So I ask you now, please take this “Obama Hater’s Questionnaire” and find out what kind of Obama hater you are.

1) You hate Barack Obama because:

a) He beat your candidate. Pretty much no other reason.
b) He is black, and so he must think of you as trash if you’re white and not president like he is, right?
c) You have a bladder infection

2) You are appalled that Barack Obama had Christian pastors read at his inauguration because

a) You are a true atheist
b) You know Hillary Clinton wouldn’t have had any religious people on the dais and would likely have had all the hustings draped in the communist flag.
c) You are a libertarian and Obama was ordering you to believe in Christ
d) You’re suffering from the shingles

3) You are angry that Barack Obama has not let on his true feelings about Guantanamo’s prison, about the Gaza invasion, about the stimulus package or about bombing the shit out of Iran. Why are you mad?

a) Obviously he’s not presidential material because he hasn’t taken an insanely extreme position on these things like you would. You and George Bush.
b) Obviously he doesn’t want to take a position because he just wants to be a rock star all day. He has no credentials.
c) Actually, he’s been very clear about these things. You’re just mad because he hasn’t taken your position.
d) Your mother said you’d never be a model because you are under 5 feet 6 inches.

4) You hate Obama because

a) He’s overhyped. Overhyped in the sense that he’s worked hard and become a model of the American dream, got through a famously difficult law school, has inspired people, did not make any horrible campaign flubs, did not invade a country without justification, did not conceal Whitewater records, did not wiretap phones and did not fry lots of people as governor of Texas as a way to become a celebrity with shit heads.
b) He’s a smoker.
c) Girl Power!
d) You locked yourself out of your house tonight and who in the hell does he think he is?

5) You vote for people mainly because

a) They look like you
b) They have your same genitalia
c) You have always voted for the same political party the same way you vote for the home football team, because loyalty has always been more important to you than personal integrity, morality, the law or who buried who in a ditch
d) It’s a fun way to bide time before the Trotskyite revolution you’ve been waiting a century for
e) You are very passionate about our country’s infrastructure.
f) You’d like to have sex with them
g) Politicians are responsible for your happiness in a way you yourself are not

6) You are skeptical of Obama because

a) As an independent thinker, you are skeptical of everybody and all suspect ideological trends. You never went out and tried to convince the world that Ron Paul was a hero. You never said, ‘God bless George Bush for protecting us all that time.’ You never made an ass of yourself pimping Hillary Clinton for no other reason that she was a woman and that it was her turn. You never stood up for Mike Huckabee and his brave stand against scientific reason. You never were bedazzled by Sarah Palin and her jus’ folks moose-hunting crazy eyes. That’s right, your Obama hatred is all about your famous independent streak.
b) He’s done nothing more than give a lot of fancy speeches. If he were really a leader, he would have killed something by now.
c) All politicians let us down sooner or later. We’d have been much better off with Hillary Clinton, who has already let us down plenty.
d) You’re on thorazine and pretty much suspicious of everybody

That’s all. If you answered any of these questions, then you are officially bitter. We here at “Beauty is Imperfection” urge you to immediately find a t-shirt that represents your specific type of existential despair.