Support for the president

This may seem contradictory to what I've posted over teh last few days, but it's really not. I outlined my fears and objections to an Obama presidency. Be those as they may, the die is cast.

I was a McCain supporter, not just because he was the Republican nominee, but because I hold a high opinion of him. He campaigned like a gentleman (which may have been his undoing) and when he conceded last night, he did that like a gentleman as well. We as conservatives should do the same.

Back in April, several of us agreed to avoid certain behaviors we saw damage the Clinton and Bush administrations unduly. Now a blogger at Patterico has advice for the new chief executive and also reminds us what we as conservative Americans ought to say and do now that Obama is the president-elect:

1. We’ll acknowledge that you’re the President of the United States, that you got the job fairly and properly, and that you want to do the right thing.

2. We’ll shun anyone who believes personal harm to you is a good way to prevent your policies from coming in. For that matter, we’ll shun anyone who believes personal harm to you is a good idea for any reason.

3. We’ll try to stop the programs that look like boondoggles before they start. Once they start, we’ll try to make them work as efficiently as possible.

4. We’re not all moving to Costa Rica or anything; we don’t view this as the end of civilization. We’re going to try to make this country a better place. We’ll keep farming, working, raising families, and petting puppies. Sometimes, we’ll like you.

5. We’ll fight for what we believe is right. The free-market folks will fight. The small-government folks will fight. We’ll point out how the programs aren’t working. We’ll point out the long-term harm. And in all likelihood, we’ll try to get a viable candidate to send you on the lecture circuit in 2012.

Barack Obama is going into office with a number of handicaps. The biggest, I think, is just the temptation to abuse his popularity in the ways I pointed out below. He's also made a lot of pie-in-the-sky promises that he now has either to keep or get out of without being seen to weasel.

His lack of conscience where human life is concerned will cost him the support of a lot of Christians who otherwise might be reconciled to him. (Me among them, alas; I aim to fight him on those issues every inch of the way.) And he's going to have a very, very hard time gaining the respect of the military, because he's never served. Clinton faced the same thing and never really overcame it.

I think he got the office with a lot of dishonesty, through ACORN fraud and other machine tactics. But as the saying goes, once the ship sails, all bills are paid. Now that he's in, we need to pray for him and hope he doesn't get himself and us into any situations we can't get out of by the next election cycle. Let's not be like the Gore campaign and refuse to accept a fait accompli.

I'm pleased to see that the White House will no longer be exclusively white. I'd rather it were a conservative black man in the Oval Office, but at least that particular barrier has been broken for good.

Good luck, Mr. President-Elect.

Addendum: This is what I meant. Would that it had been said several years ago.