I can't believe this is really happening.

RadicalTexan

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Mon Jan-19-09 08:50 PM
Original message

I can't believe this is really happening.

Edited on Mon Jan-19-09 08:54 PM by RadicalTexan

I was a tour guide at the Texas Capitol and Governor's Mansion during the 2000 election. I've been in W's bathroom. I ran into him during my tour a few times, and he once stopped to talk to some fourth graders in the Capitol basement. I know that he often nixed the Mansion's menu in favor of hot dogs, and that one morning we arrived to see an empty Wild Turkey bottle in the front seat of the twins' Land Rover. Laura smoked out back, and had the lines around her mouth to show for it. We all thought Bush was a clown and that there was no way he would get the Republican nomination, much less get elected. We were elated, watching the primary returns, when McCain won New Hampshire. We were shocked when W emerged as the nominee.

We watched the debates, in the dark, cramped living room of my college apartment, and we cringed in unison as W shared his oh-so-cute little shoulder-heaving chuckle with the world for the first time, while defending the use of the death penalty in Texas. We couldn't believe Gore didn't take him down, using facts rather than sighs (though we, too, were sighing mightily).

On election night, my friends and I started out at a Mexican restaurant, and things looked good. We had some margaritas and went back to my house, where most of my fellow tour guides and I slumped further and further into our chairs and floor pillows as the night wore on. Finally, there were just a few of us left, and it was clear that there would be no closure that night. My best friend and I walked over to Mojo's, the now defunct coffee house on the drag, and we sat there until about 3:00am with a crowd of other folks, all staring into cups of black coffee and smoking in virtual silence, heads hanging, as a Johnny Cash record played over and over.

For the next few weeks, we found ourselves in an impossible position, as tourists wearing beglittered W baseball hats said things to us like, "Aren't y'all so excited that George is goin' to Washington?!" Sometimes we even dryly responded to them, "Come back at five, and I'll tell you." It was excruciating. I worked there until that July and never once did I refer to him as "the president" - always just "Bush" or "former Governor Bush", and I was more adamant than ever to point out that not only was he not the first Texan president, but he wasn't even born in Texas.

On inauguration day, we all watched the dog and pony act on our little television in the break room. One guy was even on the floor, in tears. It was too much; too heavy; surreal. Unbelievable.

And I feel that way again today, a bit. In that it's unbelievable. W is finally, finally leaving. I wholly expected them to pull some sort of martial law shit in 2004, and again this year, but, alas, it looks like we've finally made it to the end. I wish that fucker would move to Paraguay and be a fake rancher there. Most of us Texans don't really want him. At least I can flip off his house when I drive by, just like the old days.

The new administration has so much to overcome; as do we regular folks. But I still feel an overwhelming sense of relief, and an inkling of joy. I can't believe that the president is real president. I can't believe he's black. I can't believe he was a community organizer. I can't believe he may rescind many of Bush's bullshit executive orders this very week. I can't believe he will be our representative to the world.

It's been a long, long time. That night, watching the drama of the hanging chad unfold, and the following slow and hazy days, the constitutional crisis, the disappointment, the anger: none of it prepared me - us - for how truly abysmal the Bush years would be. We couldn't have imagined 9/11, obviously; but we also couldn't have imaged the national debt, or the Iraq invasion and occupation, or the PATRIOT Act, or the freedom fries, or the torture, or the attacks on science, or the embarrassment at being an American. Even though we thought Bush was a joke, an incompetent, self-entitled frat boy with a penchant for exploiting the evangelical fringe and funneling money to his oil-rich cronies, we simply had no idea.

I don't know what's going to happen in the next four, or eight years; indeed, with the way things are going, I don't know what's going to happen in the next four days. But, for the first time in eight years, I feel like we will have a president who is up to the task. I feel like we matter. Just a little bit. I feel like the Constitution matters again. I feel like I am in America again.

Thank you.