335 days, 16 hours, 28 minutes

So, some of you might recognize what this post title refers to, but for those of you who don't, click here.

I must admit, this time around, I'm less excited about who the next president is going to be than I am about the fact that it won't be him. How glorious the day will be when there is no fear of innocently turning on NPR in the morning and hearing that man commenting on Castro stepping down from power:

"This gives the international community an opportunity to . . . um . . . establish . . . to establish institutions to . . . um . . . ."

My God, spit it out, man! And make some small effort to make your subjects and verbs agree while you're at it! Please?

Actually, it's kind of weird to hear W speak these days. There's something different in his voice that's kind of pathetic. He still has that annoying defensive tone that he's always had, but now, there's also something defeatist there, something sad and resigned. He also sounds like he's just dutifully reading off a script (which he still manages to screw up somehow, frequently), blindly reciting words written by someone else, talking about stuff he doesn't really care about. In some ways, it's more disturbing to hear a president talk like that than it is to hear him adamantly and passionately espousing dangerous and very wrong policies. I mean, who would you rather have in charge--a crazy person, or a lobotomized person? It's kind of a tough call.

I also have to wonder if it's possible that W has entered a period of self-reflection, if it's starting to dawn on him what a failure and shambles his presidency has been, and if that's what's driving his new demeanor. I never would have thought him capable of self-reflection, but I guess anyone can grow. (?) Unfortunately, at this point, there's not really much for him to grow into. . . .

One thing's for sure--the RWBF and I are not going to be hashing out these issues any time soon. Recently we made a pact--for the next several months leading up to the election, he is not to say anything about Hillary, and I'm not to say anything about Bush. (And I haven't even made up my mind about who I'm going to support--I'm just tired of his endless cracks about Hillary. Obama doesn't seem to bother him so much.) Such are the little deals we have to make with each other in order to successfully navigate the landscape of our relationship. If we didn't, we would no doubt have endless repeats of "Reagan Sunday," a day a few weeks ago where we spent the morning arguing about Reagan and the afternoon not speaking to each other. It's not fun and it accomplishes nothing, so what's the point?