charlabob
I have to admit I skim most of the posts, not from lack of interest but from lack of time, but I just had a light-bulb insight:
We’re all starting to identify with “our candidates” entirely too much.
I’m pretty sure when JenV says, “You all voted in the biggest dummy in the world,” she meant the editorial “You-all” — not “You-All NR, you dummy”.
In fact, I include as dummies the people on the left who refused to vote for Gore for some reason or another, even though I suspect one of those might be my own dear bob.
Is Bush the biggest dummy ever? Probably not, because IMNHO he accomplished exactly what he set out to do. Certainly not something people on my side have pulled off. If you think anyone who calls him a dummy is talking about you, you’ll suffer from needless hurt feelings.
Some of us really don’t identify with our candidates (though we’ve wearily tired of explaining that.) Some of you have even claimed to loathe candidate X because you loathe me. Hyperbole? Who knows or cares? But it is an extreme of identifying with someone and ultimately, irrelevant. You can find lots of reasons to like or dislike Obama; disliking him because I like him is silly. (I’m using myself as an example here because I’ve seen it happen with very many other people in this political year…if it was just about me, it wouldn’t interest even me.)
The point is, identifying with anyone or anything other than oneself is not healthy and, I think, causes hurt feelings where pure blind rage and wry amusement might suffice equally well.