I Met The President-Elect Today Edited

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Sunday January 18, 2009 · 9:35 PM PST

2009/01/18 · 21:35

Edit: Wow, my first Recommended diary. I'm tearing up again.

I apologize in advance for the very short diary.

Last week, my minister told the congregation that services were going to be held an hour later than usual, something about the Inaugural celebration, which I took to mean traffic. I wasn't really listening, I was playing around with my phone.

This week, in the course of running around trying to figure out what parties to attend, how to score tickets for the Gala, and buying long johns to wear while spending 8 hours outside serving as a Inauguration Day volunteer on the Mall, the church time thing completely slipped my mind, and I showed up a bit early to services.

Imagine my surprise when the church went on lockdown and the Obama family walked into the church.

ProdigalBanker

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Tuesday November 04, 2008 · 12:56 AM PST

2008/11/04 · 00:56

Thiry four years ago last Thursday, Muhammad Ali demoralized and defeated George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire to reclaim his title. Tonight, I saw Barack Obama reclaim America from our national nightmare in a cow pasture hard upon the battlefields of Bull Run in front of a crowd of 100,000.

I have long thought the Ali-Obama comparision was a good one to both men. However, I had previously thought of Obama as the young Ali, the one who could not be touched, could not be hurt. Tonight, as our next President fought through tragedy, through fatigue, my heart broke watching him, but ultimately, he reached down into some inner bedrock, found his bearings, and left us "fired up", dizzy and wanting to do it again.

Pictures will be posted after I recharge my batteries.

ProdigalBanker

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Tuesday October 28, 2008 · 8:23 AM PDT

2008/10/28 · 08:23

I wrote my first diary 7 months ago right after our next president spoke so beautifully about race and did his best to diffuse the Rev. Wright contretemps. I wrote about my family: the Lynching Tree, fighting homegrown terrorists, and ultimately, why we as a family not only have to bear witness to history, but why I specifically have to as Kos put it so well, "leave everything on the road".

Today, as news of assassination plots and slurs at rallies swirl around like wraiths from another age, I feel no fear, countenance no doubt. I will find comfort in that age old mantra passed down in countless African American families: "You have to work twice as hard to get half as far ahead." I will work twice as hard tomorrow as I did today, and God willing, will do more the next day and again the next day, until, on 4 November, I am spent.

ProdigalBanker

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Friday October 24, 2008 · 12:24 PM PDT

2008/10/24 · 12:24

I’ve been sporadically posting about the debt disaster in which the global economy is mired. But this morning, as the futures were lock limit down, instead of particularly caring one way or the other, I spent my time making pancakes and pondering the election, specifically, why 527’s have not come to McCain’s aid.

Here’s a little good news to help deal with 401k losses.

ProdigalBanker

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Wednesday October 15, 2008 · 11:21 AM PDT

2008/10/15 · 11:21

One of my banker friends in London, who amazingly still has a job, emailed me this afternoon trying to get some perspective on what the fall out will be from the coming global recession. I wrote back outlining my worldview, and was shocked at how pessimistic I sound.

First, allow me to freely admit this is not going to be a well written diary, rather its a distillation of a fair amount of analysis into easily digestible bullet points. Second, my analysis presupposes Obama wins. If McCain wins, all bets are off the table. Third, none of the following should be construed as any sort of investment advice.

ProdigalBanker

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Monday October 06, 2008 · 10:05 AM PDT

2008/10/06 · 10:05

As a degenerate gambler, John McCain must feel snakebitten. He makes the completely mavericky move of tapping a moose, I mean moose HUNTER, as his VP, only to find out she is really a washed up beauty queen whose main attributes are a sparkly smile for Doughboy Goldberg and the ability to make Katie Couric into Walter Conkrite. He even suspended something, not his campaign, mind you, but something, in order to solve the bailout morass. Unfortunately, he discovered knots on a dog's leg are pretty useless on the Hill. But the ship seemed righted after Palin did not flee in tears in the midst of her recitation of talking points as Biden debated. The quite estimable Schmidt braintrust, after apparently hiring Baghdad Bob, assured the faithful that the campaign's strategic advance in retrograde out of Michigan meant that resources were now available to define Obama as a black guy who "pal[s] around with terrorists". This was the tactic that the team had been counting on, this was the one to double down the bet on.

And then a couple of funny things happened.

ProdigalBanker

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Thursday September 25, 2008 · 6:16 PM PDT

2008/09/25 · 18:16

Because I refuse to be a hypocrite, MOAB got me the Mother Of All Time Outs (MOAT) from ProdigalBaby. I’ve been cussing at the television and monitor for about a week, since “the fundamentals” slipped from between McGoo’s shockingly yellow teeth. As an aside, McGigolo has a wife wearing $300K outfits and he can’t seem to get to see a dentist to get a ZOOM bleaching treatment? Anyway, while I was ranting and frothing at the Palin/McCain ticket’s inability to devise a credible coherent (any positive adjective will do here, I have none) economic plan, I was reduced to screaming “Shut up, you stupid (expletive deleted, but it was heavy duty, starts with a C and ends with a sucker) at McCadaver’s image. Unfortunately, WonderBaby happened to be in the room - fortunately, ProdigalWife was not, or I might be writing this from Guantanamo - and firmly told me that we do not use those words in our household, and that it was time for a 5 minute timeout for saying stupid, and 5 more minutes for saying shut up. Since we believe in the rule of law, I turned off the TV, and was escorted to my office to sit and reflect upon why I broke the household rules.

Follow me beyond the break and lets talk about how to provide the proper structure to MOAB.

ProdigalBanker

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Thursday March 27, 2008 · 5:31 PM PDT

2008/03/27 · 17:31

Its been a long day, made even longer by the fact my head exploded after reading about the thinly veiled, no, make that naked power play attempted by some of Clinton's uberdonors. I tore up my well written piece on Obama's outline of his economic plan, back burnered a larger economic post, and left the kid and the nanny to their own devices while I spent all day on the phone flapping my gums about this.

Before I go any further, I am being a bit hypocritical in my outrage. I have lived for a fairly long time by the old adage "he who has the gold, makes the rules". That being said, I have always understood the corollary to that thinking is "the rulemaker better make sure he is the only one with the gold before acting like an ass".

ProdigalBanker

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Tuesday March 25, 2008 · 7:16 PM PDT

2008/03/25 · 19:16

I never thought my first diary would be political and not economic. Actually, I never thought I would write a diary on DK, eventhough I have lurked here since Kos was the Little Orange Imp.

I am African American, a father, a husband, a hedge fund manager turned stay at home dad last summer. At 40, I finally have figured out what is more important than squeezing a couple of percentage points out of someone else's misery.

As the Democratic primary wends its way to the increasingly inevitable Obama victory, my thoughts have strayed from Clinton's self-immolating behaviour (which is best ignored at this point; the math doesn't lie) to what an Obama victory would mean. We all know the Barack Hussein Obama story: Harvard to community activist to the state legislature, and thanks in part to Jack Ryan being a freak, junior Senator from Illinois. His biography is amazing, and each day, breaks new ground in American history. But these are not my reasons for voting for him. Rather, my family's history and my family's future are why I am willing to, to borrow a John McCain saying, follow him to the gates of Hell.

RSS

I Met The President-Elect Today Edited

Obama Boumaye, Manassas Rally

Savage, Unbridled Hope

Silver Linings to the Market Meltdown

[Updated]"Molly, You in Danger Girl" or My Take on the Global Recession

Look Out Below

My Seven Cents on the Bailout, or How MOAB Got Me MOAT

109PAC

Obama and My Family