Am I Missing Something?

Why's everyone so scared of an Obama Nation?

In perusing my local facebook, I noticed a theme in tonight's updates: Fear.
Did Obama like tear up a picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live or something?
(Incidentally, Sinead O'Connor was right about the child abuse cover-up and we should all like her music again.)

A sampling of status updates the night before inauguration:
-"socialism countdown: 14 hours and counting."
-"wa wa wawa wa wa wa."
-"getting ready for the illegal inauguration, and the Death of America Tomorrow."
-"had no plans of attending a metallica concert last night but somehow ended up at one."

The last one had nothing to do with the inauguration, but that's my point. Here are a few other updates:
-"...wants you to check out the pictures of my beautiful little niece."
-"writing a song"
-"...is looking at dresses... oh my. (she doesn't like any of them!)"
-"...is excited for snow tomorrow!!!"


What does the first cluster of folks know that the second does not? Could it be this gem - in response to the "Death of America" comment:
-"I agree 100%!!!!!!!! We will definitely be making history tomorrow - inaugurating a person who is NOT a U.S. CITIZEN!!!!! What a tragedy!"

That does sound frightening! Did no one get a CV on this guy?

Let's take a step back and remember a couple of things:
1. President Obama does not believe in gay marriage.
2. President Obama has not announced plans to make abortions any more available than they have been in recent years.
---My evangelical friends should breathe a sigh of relief - Here.---
3. President Obama has stated plainly that he does not plan to socialize health care.
4. President Obama has not made any plans known that would remove citizens' rights to bear arms.

If I were president, I would fight for the legalization of gay marriage, for abortion reform that doesn't fit on a bumper sticker, for universal, government funded health care, for outlawing handguns and for the reallocation of a whole heap of our military resources and spending toward more constructive endeavors. But I'm not president. And if I were, I still couldn't do any one of those things without the overwhelming support of two houses of congress (each effectively split down the middle by party) and/or a supreme court that has just been stacked with right wing ideologues. No, even someone as liberal, leftist, and morally ambiguous as myself couldn't gay up the nation all by my lonesome.

What powers would I have as president...?
1. I could move a metric shit-ton of troops anywhere I wanted for a period of time without congressional approval.
2. I could appoint supreme court justices who back me ideologically.

As it turns out, President Obama is not a big fan of war. I'm thinking he won't be taking advantage of power #1 too often. As for power #2, what are we always saying about supreme court justices? Oh, right: they should be folks who "uphold the Constitution" and whatnot. I wonder what kind of justices President Obama, a 12 year professor of constitutional law who's just filled his cabinet with as many political rivals as allies, will appoint to the bench. Probably not a leftist ideologue.

Now, I'm an ass - always have been. You don't want me as president.
But.
If you had to choose a person to be president - a person with whom you disagreed politically on a whole slew of issues - you could do worse than a guy like Barack InflammatoryMiddleName Obama. Right?