The outcome of the election was not a surprise. A Dem win by either Senator Clinton or Obama became a near fait accompli the moment McCain clinched the nomination in a year in which the economy was the dominant issue for the electorate. The real shocker would have been a McCain upset.

But like many other people who place a high value on limited government, the sanctity of human life, America’s special relationship with Israel, and the need to remain on offense in the war on terror–the results left me feeling a mixture of anger, disappointment and sadness.

Anger  . . . at what has derisively come to be known as “the mainstream media,” as most journalists and journalistic institutions self-consciously abandoned all professional standards and all pretense of objectivity and transformed themselves into an unregulated arm of the Obama campaign.

For example, by August 7, Sen. Obama’s face had been on the cover of Time seven times–and with equally ridiculous frequency on Newsweek as well. The week before the election, a smiling Sen. Obama–the smoker–graced the cover of Men’s Health. That’s right. Men’s “Health.”

(By the way, have you seen a single press photograph of President-elect Obama smoking during the stressful campaign? Will the press scrupulously avoid publishing any photos of the President smoking in the same way they complied with FDR’s request that he not be shown in his wheelchair? And will there be ashtrays in the Oval Office–sporting the presidential seal? Can I have one?)

This morning, Chris Matthews told Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program that he felt it his responsibility as a broadcaster to help make the Obama presidency a success. Seriously. For eight years we’ve been told by Matthews and others that it was the press’ job to be adversarial to the White House to keep it honest. Now it’s suddenly its job to be a loyal part of the team? That’s some serious “change.”

Today, AM talk radio is the only mass media vehicle on which conservative voices can still be heard outside the editorial pages of a few local newspapers. If, as expected, the Pelosi-Reid-Obama government reeinstates the fairness doctrine and effectively muzzles that channel, we will have a situation in this country that is truly dangerous for democracy.

Disappointment . . . that my party couldn’t find a way to nominate a stronger, more conservative candidate for the most important political office in the world. There is much to admire about John McCain the man, but as long-time readers of the blog know, I’ve never been a fan of McCain the politician or crafter of public policy. The fact is, George W. Bush, Bob Dole, and Bush 41 weren’t the best picks either, though, again, there is much to admire about each man. You have to go back to Ronald Reagan to find the Republican Party nominating the right man at the right time.

And there is also disappointment in the small but highly visible number of conservatives and libertarians who constructed contorted rationalizations for supporting Senator Obama’s candidacy.

Sadness . . . that I was robbed of the exciting opportunity to cast a vote for the first black President of the United States because the first African-American nominee of a major party was unfit for the office by virtue of inexperience and ideology. That would have been fun. If America was truly hungry for a wise philosopher-king with dark skin, it should have found a way to draft Thomas Sowell.

I get the pride and thrill that people of all races are feeling about the passing of this milestone. And I understand how powerful the pull of “identification” was for black evangelical Christians. Just look at how excited we Christians get when we find out that some celebrity or sports star is a believer.

But isn’t voting for a African-American man that you would clearly have vigorously voted against if he were white, a blatantly racist act? Isn’t this a variant of “the soft racism of low expectations?”

***

Chris Matthews is clearly wrong in thinking it is his job as a journalist to work for the success of the Obama presidency. But it is my duty as a believer to pray for President Obama, and I already am.

As a person who loves this country mightily, I’ll entreat the God of heaven that President Obama will operate in wisdom, steer the ship of state well in these dangerous waters, and find the will to resist the pull of the forces that dominate his political party.

Because when the most liberal Congress in 30 years starts flooding his desk with legislation, he’ll have to either sign the bills or veto them.

Voting “present” is no longer an option.

Later on tonight, (I’ve got to get some paying work done first) I’ll post all of my post-election musings and meloncholia in one big, rambling, depressing dump. Then, having fully purged, I’ll go back to  posting mostly witty riffs on retro-future culture, oddball stuff I find on the web, and heart-warming anecdotes about parenting and such, for a while.

Yes, those of you hoping I’ll stop yammering and bellyaching about the culture and politics for a few minutes will get your wish.

I’m currently debating myself about whether to keep the Chris Matthews Leg site going beyond the election. It has somehow taken on a life of it’s own and actually gets a lot of traffic. (If somone knows the best way for me to turn that into a little cash for my trouble, please let me know.)

Speaking of earning cash . . . back to work now. It’s only 8pm and I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep.

I strongly suggest you read this:

A group of British conservatives have launched a web site to counter anti-Americanism in Great Britain and elsewhere.

Have a look at “America in the World.”

Update: Maybe someone should launch a website to counter anti-Americanism in America.

In 2000, Al Gore got 29 percent of white voters who attended church weekly. Four years ago, John Kerry got an identical 29 percent of the same group. So, for the last four years Democrat strategists have worked at trying to peel off enough of those voters to swing a close election their way.

Today a Gallup poll puts support for Barack Obama among this group at . . . wait for it . . . 28%.

Excerpt:

No Democratic nominee in the modern day has made more of an effort to court religious voters than Obama. Jimmy Carter, a Southern evangelical, was the last Democrat to narrowly contest weekly church-going voters in a two-man race. But where Carter attempted to deemphasize his faith in the 1976 campaign, Obama has repeatedly returned to his faith to narrow the so-called God gap that has dogged Democrats for decades.
The party’s primary saw repeated and unprecedented events emphasizing faith, such as the Compassion Forum a little more than a week before the Pennsylvania vote. In the general election, in no less unprecedented form, the first event attended by the two candidates was not a presidential debate but a forum on religion and cultural politics at an evangelical megachurch.

Many will likely write the failure of these efforts off to latent racism among white Christians. But how then does one explain the fact that white guys Kerry and Gore got virtually identical margins? Of course, the real answer is, “It’s the ideology, stupid.” The old statist,  government-as-false-messiah policies of the past don’t suddenly become appealing just because Nancy Pelosi awkwardly uses some biblical language.

And if there were some Bush values voters out there who were considering switching sides, I suspect that seeing what Sarah Palin was subjected to put an end to that.

Of course, Barack Obama may not need any additional votes from this group this time around. And if this poll holds up, he won’t be getting them.

 Early on in this race, a lot of Americans, including some friends of mine, became enamored with with “idea” of an Obama presidency. As any good post-modern will tell you, narratives are everything, and the Obama narrative was über appealing. But here in the final hours before an election set in the most volatile global context since 1936, my hope is that moderate voters are taking a hard look at “President Obama” the reality.

The ever-brilliant Mark Steyn explores this theme here.  An excerpt:

The two-dimensional idea of President Obama is seductive: To elect a young black man of Kenyan extraction and Indonesian upbringing offers redemption both for America’s original sin (slavery) and for the more recent perceived sins of President Bush — his supposed enthusiasm for sticking it to foreigners generally, and the Muslim world in particular. And no, I’m not saying he’s Muslim. It’s worse than that: He’s a pasty-faced European — at least in his view of state power, welfare, and taxation. . .The problem is we’re not electing a symbol, a logo, a two-dimensional image. Long before he emerged on the national stage as Barack the Hope-Giver and Bringer of Change, there was a three-dimensional Barack Obama, a real man who lives in the real world. And that’s where the problem lies.

This was heartening. Some liberals are starting to express embarassment about the liberal media–particularly the network home of Keith Olbermann:

Both sides of aisle rip MSNBC

An excerpt:

 The cable news channel is “completely out of control,” said writer-producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, a self-proclaimed liberal Democrat.

She added that she would prefer a lunch date with right-leaning Fox News star Sean Hannity over left-leaning MSNBC star Keith Olbermann.

Olbermann was criticized by many who attended Monday’s luncheon sponsored by the Caucus for Producers, Writers & Directors at the Beverly Hills Hotel. The event was dubbed “Hollywood, America and Election ’08.”

Bloodworth-Thomason and others seemed especially critical of the way MSNBC — and other media — has attacked Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin while demeaning her supporters.

I was wondering if were any intellectually-honest feminists out there with the courage to denounce what Gov. Palin has been subjected to since being named McCain’s running mate. It’s good to know there is at least one.

Two very different writers. Two quotes. Very similar, timely messages.

Robert A. Heinlein:

The America of my time line is a laboratory example of what can happen to democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies throughout all histories. A perfect democracy, a “warm body” democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction…. [O]nce a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader — the barbarians enter Rome.

C.S. Lewis:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

(hat tip:  Andy McCarthy and Jonah Goldberg)

Went ahead and cast my vote today. Not that any of my favored candidates really needed my help. When you live in the reddest of cities in the reddest of counties in the reddest section of one of America’s reddest states–you don’t really get the feeling that your vote is making a huge difference. Votes in the primaries tend to be much more meaningful.

Female Offspring Unit #1 cast her very first vote today. That’s a significant milestone. I have it on good authority that she voted well.

I remember my very first presidential vote. It was for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and I was thrilled to cast it. My vote today didn’t feel like that one. It felt more like my vote for Bob Dole in 1996. The difference being, Republicans had taken control of Congress in 1994, the Internet bubble economy was rocking along nicely, and the prospect of a second Clinton term wasn’t remotely as troubling as the thought of an Obama presidency.

Today, the Senate and House are in the hands of irresponsible know-nothings. The world economy is teetering on the edge of a precipice. The Russians and the Chinese are actively making trouble for the U.S. all over world. And today a responsible source in Israel says the Iranians are considering a preemptive strike on Israel.

Today my daughter may have cast her first vote in the most important U.S. election since 1860.

That’s a phrase NRO’s election guru, Jim Geraghty, uses to describe the reaction he gets from liberal readers every time he mentions a poll that shows McCain gaining ground on Obama.

And yet some liberal readers are driven into a fury each time I point to something that suggests their guy might not win, or might not win by a landslide. And it’s clearly ratcheted up in recent days. . .So what’s going on here? These folks are who they are; I’m not expecting discourse beyond their usual “YOU SUCK” level. But why are they so bothered by one guy saying that a landslide isn’t inevitable? Why does “your guy might not win” send them into paroxysms of rage?

Of course, as reader Ted points out in a comment on a previous post, this is nothing compared to the eruption of molten fury that will take place if McCain is miraculously able to pull this out (and it will definitely have involved divine intervention if it happens.)

We’ve had a couple of months now of the media establishment assuring the nation that Obama is going to win–in part as a psychological effort to discourage and suppress potential McCain voters. We have a huge majority of the African-American population deeply emotionally invested in the Obama candidacy. We have eight years of frustration at two previous super-narrow losses.

All that, coupled with the fact that Obama has energized a segment of the American populous that is semi-deranged (remember the anarchist protesters that were throwing bleach on grandmothers at the Republian convention in St. Paul?) adds up to a swelling caldera that will blow the moment the election is called for McCain (if it goes that way.)

There will almost certainly be riots and looting in many of America’s major cities. (Heck, there’s rioting and looting in Detroit when the Pistons win the NBA championship.) When the national guard is called out to restore order and protect property, it will fulfill all the dark fantasies the left has been entertaining over the last few years about Bush the dictator. “We knew he was just looking for an excuse to declare martial law!” they’ll scream.

The disruptive and scarring claims of election fraud that followed the Bush victories in 2000 and 2004 will seem like a Teletubbies love-fest in compared to the blizzard of litigation that will follow such an outcome.

In other words, it will get very, very ugly.

Of course, if Obama wins as predicted, it will get ugly in a very different way.

Thus, it seems that no matter what happens in two weeks, it will be a good time to know that you are a child of God and that this fact makes you a citizen of another Kingdom–one that knows no boundaries and functions in a different economy.

Nevertheless, wisdom and prudence would suggest that you may not want to be in the middle of a major city on election night. Just in case.