What The Fuck?
I have the same worries. And its not outside the spectrum of critical thinking to think it could happen. It happened more than once in the 60s, and I consider Obama to be that charismatic, and the times to be equally turbulent. I will hold my breath till about this time next year.
You are such a Catholic, Dan.
Remember those sex advice columns where the guy wants to admit to his wife that he cheated just to get it off his chest and get some forgiveness? Even though it will screw up his marriage and make the kids cry and not help anybody in any way? And you will say suck it up and keep that shit to yourself?
This is sort of like that. Yes, you want to get that shit out but it isn't helping. All it does is make the rest of us freak out too and aren't we all a little too fragile right now for that? Perhaps you need to find a different kind of outlet for these feelings that doesn't involve making thousands of blog readers tremble and whimper in the corner like frightened puppies. Yoga? Writing very large checks to the good guys? Something I don't know. Whatever will keep that negativity bottled up inside and repressed the way Freud said it should be.
That's incredible, Dan. I have the exact same theory on bad luck. The best way to prevent something bad from happening is to expect it to happen. I know it's not rational or well, true, but it's got a great confirmation bias backing it up, so I keep it up.
I totally agree with your philosophy (after all, whenever I think I did good on an exam, I totally fail), and I promise to worry about it as hard as I can.
I totally agree with your philosophy (after all, whenever I think I did good on an exam, I totally fail), and I promise to worry about it as hard as I can.
I agree with those who think you should keep these thoughts to yourself.
Really...stop talking about this. You've talked about several times previously, and my theory about "bad luck" is exactly opposite yours.
Talk about it with your boyfriend. Talk about it with your son. But, don't use your place in this paper to keep this issue alive.
From what I've read, your mother didn't worry much about everything. Gal seemed to have everything figured out. And I mean that in a good way.
And I can't stress how ridiculous you sounded on Bill Maher. It was soooo out of place, kind of like the F-word in your podcasts. And a little here. But it's good, it shows you're human.
Again, /power hug. Everything is going to be okay. Mmkay? Mkay.
Never fear, Dan! I'll be here to save the day.
1st we have enough problems without speculations.
2nd if that scenario did unfold, the problem wouldn't be riots but the implosion of the larger system. Our society literally banks on the future. Take that away and things stop having predictable value.
Let's keep the self-fulfilling prophecy shit out of this, please.
*anything. Fuck.
Being a smoker (or ex-smoker) Odrama should worry about his lung more than worry about someone took him out.
Dan, I didn't say this when it happened, but I'm really sorry about the loss of your mother. The worse moments for me after death is when I think "I should call so and so to talk about this," then realize their not here anymore. Somehow I'm betting that's happened to you lately.
I can't help but suspect that the people who voice these assassination worries actually want it to happen.
Nothing's going to be predictable in this weird century that we've had so far. Nothing is "like" anything that we've seen before. The world may see a New America after Obama gets the presidency. Things have gotten more desperate, but things arn't going to be as easy to do anymore, not since the fall of 2001. It's time to wake up from the dream of paranoia and/or euphoria about the candidates and get back to work. Then maybe the Bush Nightmare years will start to fade away for good.
Sure, you're allowed to WORRY about it. You're just not allowed to TALK about it.
pathetic
Jesus fuck, Dan. Don't worry over events you cannot control.
I'm more worried that Hillary will only half-heartedly support Obama for president and her followers will either vote McCain or stay home.
Ih Obama is assassinated and there is a race war, I am going to put on my traditional Cherokee garb and claim neutrality.
make enough lame crapshoot predictions and every once in a while, months/years down the road you can say "see, I now it sounded crazy at the time, but I just had a feeling"
no biggie, people don't remember the ones that didn't come true anyway
I'm a conservative republican, and i won't be voting for Obama, but i share dan's concern. it's hard to think of much that would be worse than something like that happening. just awful for the country, not to mention his wife and daughters. maybe it's the catholic in me too. if it helps i'll be worrying and stressing right along with you, dan.
I don't know about the scope of the riots but I'm certain that if your suggested scenario plays out IT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING - just like every ordinary and extraordinary event that has ever occurred has CHANGED EVERYTHING.
Dan, please turn your wonderful physics-defying worrying abilities to something truly useful and miraculous, like turning the Mariner's season around. Thanks.
What if some terrorists do it ? Oh wait he's the appeaser so they won't do that. They'd love 'em some Omama
It's normal to worry in the privacy of your own life, but this is damn creepy. There's no *way*, if Bush has survived all this time, that Obama won't survive another few months. Besides, how dumb are you gonna feel if he *does* get knocked off? Just to make you paranoid, Dan, got any enemies who'd love to torment you for the rest of your life, by maybe making your fears come true? Yeah, I thought so, so knock off this public worrying shit. It's creepy.
Chill Dan. I'm offering Hillz the Veep spot to help me get her before she gets me.
Forgive me, America, but when she cocks the hammer she'll get hit by change she ain't ever gonna believe in.
Dan, crazy people shoot at famous people. We take all the precautions we can against that, but Obama doesn't have the market cornered on targeting.
Are you as scared if Hillary wins she'll be just as much a target of crazed misogynists as Obama would be a target of crazed bigots? Or McCain of someone who simply wants the press or even his support of Israel (hello, Sirhan Sirhan)?
If you support Obama's message, why then live in fear?
Dan Dear, don't you have a dog? This is the sort of thing that is best confided to your dog. Just because you have a slog, that doesn't mean you have to use it for every little thing.
Get a dog. Take him or her for a walk. Tell him or her your fears. He or she will look at you with the look they give you, and wag his or her tail, and lick you, and you will feel much better.
Unless you are one of those horrible people who doesn't like dogs. In that case, just suffer in silence. Offer your pain up to the poor souls in purgatory.
Didn't everyone get mad at me when I alluded to this possibility?
I guess it's ok as long as it's expressed with enough guilt and reservation.
or if I would have also said, "just saying..."
this is why Obama shouldn't take on Clinton as VP... just sayin'. I mean even if it would help win, he can't be takin' that kind of risk as the father of two little girls.
I never would have had these thoughts 4 months ago.
'nuff said.
Your worries: it is a Catholic thing, and it is a human thing given our pathetic history for somehow sabotaging the best and the brightest.
Dwelling on the dreadful ifs is one thing, being fatalistic is another. I recall reading that at Martin Luther King's funeral, Bobby - displaying pure black Irish gallows humor - asked a friend: "Been to any good funerals lately?"
Do a couple of Vitamin V-2s - that'll help.
im sure he will have stellar security. it would be tragic if something hapenned.
http://www.queersunited.blogspot.com
please go back to worrying about non-diary whip in 1st class.
Or start a livejournal, you have a knack.
I agree, Dan, you should really get off this wierd trip of yours.
devon,
Watch and try to understand. No one legitimate thinks that diplomacy is appeasement. It really makes you sound stupid to suggest as much.
Dan,
I share your worry, but I think it will be okay. Sometimes when things are going well, all we can think about is what will come along and ruin it. Take a deep breath, give your son a hug, and enjoy this moment in history.
This is actually the second time Dan has blogged about this very thing.
I'll be worried if Hillary is his VP... she's got some real nut jobs following her.
the secret service is totally gonna come visit you before election day. i can't wait to read the blog post.
After reading the Clinton campaign blog, I actually think Obama should think twice about making Clinton his VP, she has some seriously scary fans. If you took the comments off her blog and mixed them in with some from a crazy-right-wing site like Free Republic, it would be tough to tell which was which.
What happens if McCain becomes as dead as he looks? Does Jeb step in, or what?
What the fuck is a conservative Republican doing on Slog?
Take that goddamn link to Sullivan off right now.
The more you think about it, the more likely it will happen.
Read "Excuse Me Your Life is Waiting."
Hey Poe! Sully RAWKS!!!
What are you so afraid of Mr. Poe? Surely you are not afraid to articulate your positions, so why can't you be a gentleman and allow others to articulate theirs even if they're in the other party?
Dianna@15 & Dan:
The worse moments for me after death is when I think "I should call so and so to talk about this," then realize their not here anymore.
Fuhhhhhhhck that's the worst. My mom died three weeks ago. That "oh, I should really call my mom... oh" happens to me at least twice a day. Often with regards to my kids.
She was a Hillary fan after Edwards dropped out, and was worrying that Bill was fucking it up for Hillary. Once the writing was on the wall though, which occured about two weeks before she lost her faculties, she was at piece with the idea of Obama as our leader, and really excited about what it would mean in our relations with the rest of the world.
Oh, and Dan? If no right wing loon could get close enough to Bill, nor avid SLOG reader get close enough to W, Obama's going to be just fine.
I love you dan... and I have the same worries... but it may be time for you to take a good dose of humility and realize that Magical Thinking is just narcissism. I guess if I weren't a dyed in the wool atheist (agnostic on a good day) I'd cut you some slack. But, you have to admit that this is some sad, I-control-the-cosmos, f-ed up thinking.
Dan, do us all a favor on this topic and
SHUT THE FUCK UP.
Fuck you Dan. Shut the fuck up.
Thank you.
So you are worrying so it won't happen. That is like some Voodoo thinking or like praying all the time because you feel it makes a difference.
It dosen't.
Dan, that just validates the conservatives' view that blacks are holding the "repressed majority" hostage. Also, that's creepy and wrong. Stop that!
@47 I'm sorry about your mother. I know it was expected, but that doesn't lessen the grief of no longer having her around.
Now I wish it wasn't almost one in the morning because I have a powerful urge to call my own mom.
Thanks, PopTart.
well .. i never worry before bed. i learned that from my mother who learned it from hers. i was thinking about what you're trying not to think about dan.. i was also remembering those awful decades ago when the collective america could still be shocked about those things. we didn't worry about jfk (i was in the 5th grade ), malcolm (6th grade ), martin (freshman high school..and for all the folks that don't want to talk about this, remember that martin talked about it openly, publicly, and eloquently just hours before it happened and we still didn't worry ) or rfk ( freshman high school). we were pretty danged shocked about it all when it happened, but we pulled through the unthinkable for all of them and have been pulling through every tragedy and disaster in the now almost half century since and I'M thinking all that pulling through finally got us to this point right here, to these mind reeling moments where all the impossibilities of the past now seem imminently possible and will now ALWAYS be so. both hillary and barack and everyone who fought/fights for them have proved this. we may be finally past takebacks or reneges, we moved forward and we're never going back. even if we lose, even if we die, we're still in a better place than we were back when. worry if you must then ( and it really sounds like YOU must) but whatever happens i'm very very VERY sure that we'll pull through. there is always a glimmer of promise at the bottom of the box. always.
.. and now that that's settled, ditto what #49 just said..
thanks.
thank you riz, that was beautiful.
totally was thinking the same thing. My god if only we could live in a country (or world) where we don't go there immediately when someone who is not a white male gets power we immediately worry about their safety.
I won't say this is a totally frivolous worry, but considering how many other things are more worth worrying about, I wouldn't spend another ounce of emotional energy or inch of precious SLOG type obsessing about it.
Can we all focus on beating John "Same ol Same ol/faux-maverick/employer of lobbyists" McCain like a rug now instead?
I think youve hit something important, dan. obama's choice as vp should be someone so radical, so determined for change that if (God forbid) something happened, that vp would make his/her presidency the most progressive tenure in our nations history.(And scared the shit out of the right) Someone like Russ Feingold?
@ 42 - probably Huckabee, maybe Romney.
I also worry about the riots that will break out when he loses. The wacky blackies are going to go crazy.
I had pretty much the same thought as I was trying to get to sleep last night. But its the kind of thought that only comes to me in the dark.
Consider this, Dan: RFK and MLK didn't have Secret Service protection, and JFK was still riding around in an open limo, for the love of God. Times have changed a lot since then.
Does anyone remember that plan the Bush people set up, months ago, that said very specifically that the election would be postponed--extending the W reign--should one of the main nominees die in the middle of campaign season? At the time I thought it was insurance against old-as-dirt McCain dropping dead, but now I wonder. If some right-wing nut job takes a shot at Obama and--God forbid--assassinates him, there's no election, just more Bush.
Talk about an ugly scenario: Obama shot, W "helping the country cope" by staying president another year, and repeating all this primary gobbledygook in 2009. Urgh.
The chances of Bush staying in office are less then zero. He wants out, so he can start collecting those speaking fees, and drinking without worrying about it.
Bushies are much more about greed than they are power.
I thought about that too, although not so much for the riots as for Obama himself. I was interested in watching the Secret Service guys protecting him. They were watching every single hand that went anywhere near him, and I heard that they were preceding him in the crowd, barking "Put your hands where we can see them." I'm thinking if I'm a Secret Service guy, I'll be goddamned if he's gonna get shot on MY watch. Some hope.
Dan, I think that fear is understandable. You're not old enough to remember Bobby Kennedy, but that was a time of hope and possibility. It was a profoundly inspiring time to be alive. That feels a little bit like then. So that would create a teensy bit of anxiety, along with the excitement. But life's like that, right?
My mom has explicitly stated an identical worrying philosophy... she also says that Jews and Catholics are basically the same -- more and more, I'm inclined to believe her.
See, this is why I think Hillary should suck it up and be Barack's running mate. I think the evil elements who would contemplate assassinating Senator Obama would be deterred by the thought of Vice President Clinton then becoming President. But maybe I'm giving the evil elements too much credit. That would, after all, be a two step thought process, something of rationality, whereas actively plotting someone else's death is deeply disturbed.
Dan, thank you for sharing. I agree it may be magical thinking, voodoo, or some other such description, but I think you are not alone in such beliefs and practises. I personally never watch the football (soccer) games of my brother's favourite team, because I don't want to jinx them!
This is why Obama needs Hil for V.P. Anybody who hates him, will hate her more and thus pause at the notion of another 4+ years of 'President Clinton'.
Seriously, why do you think George Sr had Dan the Quail as a running mate?
I'm more worried that Bushco will stage a coup and refuse to leave office. They've politicized the judiciary and the military, destroyed the National Guard, and they have no shame.
You talked about this on Bill Maher? That IS out of place, and irresponsible.
@46
I never said I was afraid, dude.
Riz, you should get a prize. The rest of you, shut up. Worrying makes the bad things happen.
grow some fucking balls savage.
Thanks Dan for saying what alot of people are thinking but too afraid to say. And if this was not a concern why then was he appointed Secret Service so early on more so than any other candidate? Those who cannot remember the past are well stuck with a Republican in the White House.
Hey idiot, posting stuff like this just bring the possibility a little closer to actualization in the minds of some people. Cut it the fuck out.
Trust the Secret Service, Dan. Besides, I've spent about seven years not worrying about GWB taking one for the team, and look what's happened. Relax.
I feel the same way, Dan. I have to say crazy things out loud in order for them not to happen. It worked for me in the past, so let's all mumble it out to ourselves.
Slog is not your Mom (may she rest in peace).
Sorry.
"Worrying makes the bad things happen."
Right, and if you believe in good things They Will Magically Happen!
See: The Law of Attraction.
Meanwhile the left wing totem worshippers who believe this crap deride the right wing totem worshippers who believe in Jesus, God, the Devil, the Big Flying Spaghetti Monster in the Sky, etc.
It's hilarious inconsistency.
Why don't we all just talk about the things we thing are interested in talking about, and drop the taboos?
What's up with the openness about sex, and the prudish closed mindedness about talking about race, assassination, or other taboos?
Teach Huckleberry Finn. Teach the horrors of slavery. Teach about imperialism. Teach about sex. Talk about it all. Fucking talk about how it's such a strange coincidence that biggest progressive leaders of the latter 20th century all got fucking shot by supposedly solo madmen -- JFK, RFK, MLK.
How come solo madmen never shoot right wing leaders, hmmmm?
Big coinky dink?
And talking about it just might make sure people who go to Obama rallies are a little more vigilant and the secret service is a bit more on notice and and maybe fucking assigns a few more agents to protect him -- then it is fucking less likely to happen.
Alternative is to be yellow, prudish, scared, hide your head in the sand ostrich, and to let the right wing folks WHO WOULD DO IT have an easier time doing it.
i refused to worry about nuclear war with the soviets, and guess what? no nuclear war.
you're retarded.
You must live in Fear.
Only if you live in Fear can Sen McSame and our Comrades in the Red Bushie party win.
Fear is the mind killer.
Embrace it - forget your Liberty, your Hopes, and your Dreams - live in Fear!
Dan -
Is it riots that is your main concern, or that this man could lose his life?
I have the exact same worrying philosophy as you. Wait, are you a Virgo? Or just Catholic?
I am a middle aged white guy and I will riot if he gets shot.
We ALL should riot if he gets shot.
It's pretty racist to think he's gonna be shot because he's black. So only black nominees get shot? Is it gonna be a drive by?
The last thing one of my co-workers said to me before I left the office yesterday was, "be careful driving home, it's nasty out there." Approximately fifteen minutes later I executed a lovely six-point dismount from my scooter after hitting an oil slick while making a lane-change by the old QFC on B'way.
Sometimes thinking about things MAKES them happen, Dan.
I'm more worried that you won't stop talking about this for the next five months or four years or eight years.
Sure - it's a possibility and maybe (and I emphasize maybe...) slightly more so than the risk any presidential candidate takes (though I'm not sure about that - there were wingnuts out to get Gerald Ford, for cryin' out loud). But you talk about it as though it should be one of the main topics of conversation in deciding this election. It is NOT!!! Move on. Seriously. It doesn't do anyone any good - yourself, the people around you, your readers, or the public discourse on the election. Whatever you do, quit talking about it on television - it is unseemly and adds nothing to the conversation. It only serves to expose your neurosis.
I keep wondering if McSame is gonna drop dead from the campaign stresses before November - does that mean the SS should come take me out for causing it? Magical thinking is silly. You neither cause something nor prevent it by thinking about it. However, jawing publicly and at length about it CAN cause it - by giving some damned nutbag the idea to help bring it about.
Once set in your mind's eye, the scene from 'The Manchurian Candidate' where Angela Lansbury receives her comeuppance from Laurence Harvey, cerebral White-Out is ineffective. Don't check it out.
Every time I think about an earthquake, an earthquake never happens.
@80... you might want to review the assasination attempts on Ford and Reagan (and the Pope) before you continue saying "How come solo madmen never shoot right wing leaders, hmmmm?"
and @87... sorry about your wreck. I'm thinking the reason that your friend said be careful is b/c driving is dangerous. That's also the reason that you had an accident. Nothing too magical there.
What I want to know is if Obama being assassinated would actually wake people up to the reality that racism still fucking exists in the US.
Goddamn, I hope it wouldn't take that. This is the sort of thing that should be talked about, unpleasant as it is.
Howard Johnson is right!
And so is Elenchos.
Dan, spreading anxiety is not necessarily a good thing, and ditto what everybody else said about superstition and magical thinking.
I think Hillary is too risky as a VP insurance policy. Yes, she sets off the right wing grumpies, but what if she becomes prez? I'm for Ellen Degeneres instead. She sets off the right wing grumpies, too, but is nice.
Is it possible B.O. could get shot? Yes. Likely? Somewhat.
Is it possible he can win? Yes.
Odds of us having to endure years of self-pitying grumbling, pissing and moaning by the white male grumpy grumpies? HIGH!
I am REALLY not looking forward to hearing them do that.
But I am really forward to their being miserable about it. >: )
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