Winning for the wrong reasons

If Obama/Biden win, which I still cannot believe, we will ask whether America saved itself for the right reasons or the wrong reasons.

The right reason would be that the American people cleared the cobwebs away. That we became serious. That we all recognized the corruption, the lies, the cruelty, the stupidity (oh the stupidity), the brutality and the greed of the 1996-2008 GOP.

The right reason would be that we became ashamed of our panicked response to the attacks of 9/11, that we saw all the blood and gold we've spilled like water.

The right reason would be that we wanted a new start, and to find out what the GOP has really done.

Then there's the wrong reason.

The wrong reason is that we're still pithed, but we're semi-blindly doing the right thing as a reaction to the news of the past weeks and the disastrous Sarah Palin.

Paul Krugman seems to think we'll make the right choice for the right reasons. Brad DeLong thinks we're making the right choice for the wrong reasons ...

Grasping Reality with Both Hands: The Semi-Daily Journal Economist Brad DeLong:

.... I think voters would like to be serious, but don't know how. And the media doesn't provide them with a way to be serious--serving as trusted intermediaries to tell Americans about candidates' likely policies and their likely effects is the last thing from reporters' minds. Recall New York Times editor Jill Abramson's sorry excuse that the Times hadn't run stories about issues because the reporters competent to cover policy substance were all dragged off to write about the financial crisis.

Paul is optimistic about the future of the press corps. I am not. I think that the Republican slime machine and their friends the Heathers in the press corps will be back--that this year the normal rules of political-journalistic slime have been temporarily interrupted.

We do, I think, still live in Nixonland...

I'm with DeLong on this one. We have not come to terms with our mistakes. In fact, we could very easily elect Palin/McCain and continue the long descent.

I'm not proud. I gave up on that when Bush was re-elected. I'll accept doing the right thing for the wrong reasons -- but I'll go easy on celebrating America's recovery. That's years away at best, and it's no sure thing.