The election is over, and Obama is going to change the world.  Just sit back, grab your ankles, and enjoy the ride down as best you can.

Twenty years ago I was on an airplane with my wife and daughter when we suddenly lost an engine.  Cabin pressure disappeared, the oxygen masks came down, and the plane began a five minute, 45 degree angle plunge toward the ground.  I thought I was going to die, and my family along with me. 

Except for the plaintive wails of my infant daughter who was terrified by the oxygen mask held against her face, the interior of the plane was deadly silent.  I looked around at the two hundred or so people in the seats behind us and saw the same look in their eyes that I and my wife had.  We knew we were in serious trouble and were unsure of our fate, but there was absolutely nothing we could do about it.  Rather than scream and cry, we all sat back and accepted the fact that we were just along for the ride.  Only the pilot and co-pilot had any real control of the aircraft, such as it was.  Our futures were in their hands.

Fortunately, after bracing for a crash, we landed without any further incident — though you wouldn't have guessed that from the rows of fire trucks and ambulances lining the runway that were visible from the airplane's windows.  Then, and only then, did we release all our pent up emotions and feel like masters of our own fates again.

I tell you this story because I've been having a discussion with a number of friends lately about the future of this country under the Obama Administration.  Two weeks into his presidency I've already lost count of the number of cabinet officers he's selected who didn't pay their taxes until they were nominated.  (Hey, did you hear the latest Republican plan to balance the budget?  Just nominate as many Democrats for higher office as you can.)  The "stimulus package" keeps growing with non-stimulus pork as the economy continues to tank with no end in sight.  Iran has launched a satellite into orbit, and North Korea is renouncing its agreements with the South and again threatening aggression.  Oh, and unlike Iran, they do have an existing nuclear capability, and a missile capable of reaching the West Coast of the United States.

Obama fashions himself in the FDR-Kennedy mode, which gives me additional cause for concern.  He's avoided the tax-cutting, pro-military aspects of the Kennedy legacy in favor of the Camelot mythology.  "Kennedy-esque," not "Kennedy-like."  Where he's likely to follow in Kennedy's actual footsteps is in the area of completely screwing up our foreign policy.  Young, naive, inexperienced, Kennedy was no match for Khrushchev during their first summit meeting, which left the Soviet dictator with the impression that the US president could be rolled.  This led to the Cuban Missile Crisis which almost brought us to nuclear war.  Had it not been for Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and the ExCom, I might be writing this article today with a mud brick and stick instead of a computer, assuming of course enough of humanity even remained to retain a common language.

Today, instead of RFK we have Eric Holder to help guide us through a crisis (when he's not otherwise occupied peddling presidential pardons to the rich husbands of big breasted women).  Obama's ExCom is still being put together, so the verdict here is still out.  The country is still being combed for enough Democrats who have actually paid their taxes to fill all the vacant cabinet slots.

Looking at the people Obama has managed to get through the nomination process, I will acknowledge that many of his cabinet officials who were given personal waivers to serve (since they violated Obama's supposedly inviolable ethical restrictions against utilizing former lobbyists, unless of course he really really really wanted them), and who paid enough of their back taxes to gain Senate confirmation, and whose husband's ethical and financial lapses were given a pass because they have 12 million names in their rolodex, are pretty smart people.  In fact, they remind me a lot of the brain trust in Roosevelt's cabinet; which leads me to my second observation.

FDR surrounded himself with bright, accomplished people who held opposing points of view and were given overlapping areas of authority.  He did this, liberal historians say, to give the president "the best information and options possible."  But there is also another, less generous way to characterize this situation.  By setting his cabinet up along these lines, FDR assured himself that he'd have sufficient justification to do whatever he wanted to do in his own personal interest.  If your Secretary of State and Secretary of War have opposing points of view, you can support the SOS on Monday when that objective serves your interest, the SOW on Tuesday when that objective serves your interest, and back and forth again and again as often as you need.

What distinguishes FDR from Obama, albeit marginally, is that FDR had some actual goals and objectives he wanted to accomplish over and above his own personal interests.  With Obama, the judgment on this is less clear.  My original fear was that Obama was a socialist ideologue who would actively seek to transform the country in that vision.  After getting rid of Richardson, Daschle and others who were supposedly the only people capable of implementing his vision, after abandoning his tax-the-rich rhetoric upon assuming office, after promising to close GITMO without actually closing it, it's becoming clear to me that Obama has no real core philosophy other than to do what is in the current best interest of Obama.  If pandering to the Left is needed one day, pandering to the Middle the next, and pandering to elements of the Right the day after that, well, that's "inclusiveness."

Don't get me wrong.  Despite my reduced fears about the implementation of an ideologically driven, Obama-directed socialist paradise, I still think Obama will be a disaster for this country domestically and internationally.  But the disaster will come from Obama's focus on Obama, not his focus on ideology.  There isn't a bus big enough for all the people he'll toss under if he needs to keep his approval ratings high. 

Unlike Bush — who had core values (though not always rigorously conservative ones), and thus wouldn't abandon friends or policies to bump up his numbers — the minute it become clear that Obama's Chief of Staff did more than simply relate an abstract preference for the new Illinois Senator in his discussions with Blago, Emanuel will get tossed under the bus too.  So too with any other Obama official or supporter whose political baggage will threaten an Obama legacy.  The man likes to be president, and he likes to be popular, and these two objectives tend to clash when a person's core values interfere.  Either get rid of the values (or, never possess them in the first place), or reconcile yourself to the fact as Bush did that you can be president, or you can be popular, but you can't be both at the same time. 

Obama's supporters will hail his superficial inclusiveness and willingness to jettison his "mistakes" (Richardson, Daschle, et. al.) as a clear example of Obama's high ethical standards, ignoring all the ethics waivers and tax dodgers he has already permitted and embraced. Only if you look behind the curtain will you begin to see the O-man for who and what he really is; a man more interested in image than substance, in impressions than results.

And this is where the ride comes in.  I ranted and railed about all of this before the election.  But the election is over.  I still care, but without passion.  I can still analyze and write about Obama and his administration for what is really is, but it's become more of an academic exercise. 

When the US is attacked by a North Korean missile, or an Islamic terrorist, or suffers any other predictable social, economic, or political problems that arise from Obama's incoherent policies, it will be like sitting in that plane again.  There's nothing I can do about it until the next election. 

For now, like the rest of the country, I'm just sitting back, grabbing my ankles, and enjoying the ride down as best I can.