Taking Pride in the Election?

Similar sentiments, two different reaction to the 2008 presidental election.  First, from writer/commentator Paul Ibrahim, who came to the U.S. as a young boy, fleeing the Lebanese civil war.  He says "I didn't need Obama to tell me that I could do anything – I was doing just fine without him."

"Apparently, to almost every member of the media, the election of a thoroughly unaccomplished man to the presidency is a definition of the American dream for the sole reason that he is half black. Even President Bush has said that Barack Obama’s election is a 'triumph of the American story.' ”

"The unfortunate truth, however, is that Obama’s election is a tremendous devaluation of the American Dream. It teaches us that the recipe for success is not achievement, but cunning. Yet somehow, everyone has fallen victim to the conventional wisdom that 'we now know we can do anything.'...Did we Americans truly need Obama’s election to finally start believing that we could be anything we wanted to be?"

"Obama’s election hasn’t told us anything we didn’t already know. It hasn’t strengthened the American dream. In fact, it trashed it....All Obama’s election has taught me is that I could develop political support through ties with felons, terrorists and radicals who will raise funds for my campaigns, that I could win those campaigns by eliminating my opponents’ names from the ballot or by relying on their sex scandals, avoid any criticism by voting “present” on important legislation, base my policy positions on polls, make good speeches, tell people what they want to hear and be thoroughly unaccomplished – and that I then could become president."

And from the hilarious blogger Iowahawk:

"Although I have not always been the most outspoken advocate of President-Elect Barack Obama, today I would like to congratulate him and add my voice to the millions of fellow citizens who are celebrating his historic and frightening election victory. I don't care whether you are a conservative or a liberal -- when you saw this inspiring young African-American rise to our nation's highest office I hope you felt the same sense of patriotic pride that I experienced, no matter how hard you were hyperventilating with deep existential dread."   

"Yes, I know there are probably other African-Americans much better qualified and prepared for the presidency. Much, much better qualified. Hundreds, easily, if not thousands, and without any troubling ties to radical lunatics and Chicago mobsters. Gary Coleman comes to mind. But let's not let that distract us from the fact that Mr. Obama's election represents a profound, positive milestone in our country's struggle to overcome its long legacy of racial divisions and bigotry. It reminds us of how far we've come, and it's something everyone in our nation should celebrate in whatever little time we now have left."

"...So for now, let's put politics aside and celebrate this historic milestone. In his famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial 45 years ago, Dr. King said 'I have a dream that one day my children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.' Let us now take pride that Tuesday we Americans proved that neither thing matters anymore. "