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If the YouTube embed doesn’t work for you, here’s the official White House livestream link.
This post is in: Best President Ever, Don't Mourn, Organize, Proud to Be A Democrat
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If the YouTube embed doesn’t work for you, here’s the official White House livestream link.
Comments are closed.
Trentrunner
“Livestream”?….
Oh, God.
Iowa Old Lady
From the ridiculous to the sublime.
Oh well, I needed a laugh, even if it was a despairing one.
JPL
Obama is going to talk about how we need to come together and then he’ll sing Kumbaya. At that point, you will hear my primal screams.
It is who he is.
geg6
@Trentrunner:
Inorite?
satby
Can’t. Not ready yet.
Mnemosyne
@JPL:
I’m still holding out hope that he declares martial law, but it’s the optimist in me.
I have to go to a dance class tonight, jackals, so let me know if anything big happens.
Spanky
Hoping for the Full Luther, expecting kumbaya.
dmsilev
Can’t we keep him for another 4 years? Please?
HeleninEire
I’m up here, Cuz I wanna see it.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
I would like to be able to perform a citizen’s arrest on anyone I come across who identifies as a Trump voter.
Larkspur
Darn. Here I am, house-sitting in a beautiful condo with a beautiful dog, and a very fine television machine, and we are having such a violent wind and rain storm that the satellite is flaking in and out. First World Problems, but I wanna see my President. Got picture again. Crossing fingers now, can’t type.
Hildebrand
@JPL: You know what? Tomorrow you can once again bitch about how Obama has let you down. Tonight can’t we just watch the President be the dignified adult that he always has been without carping about it? Jeez. In just a very short number of days, this country is going to have a serious gravitas et constantia deficit, and I am going to miss this man and his devotion to what unites us in ways I can’t even articulate. Give it a bloody rest.
dmsilev
Should be starting in just a minute; National Anthem being sung right now.
amk
from class to crass.
good job, murkkka.
Larkspur
Good anthem-singing. Oops: signal loss…. FML.
Smiling Mortician
@Larkspur: It ended just as well. Nicely done.
PaulW
what the hell is happening on Twitter? Something about #Goldenshowers (and yes I know what THAT means)
Baud
@amk: Yep.
dmsilev
For people looking at the White House livestream link, the photo of the Obamas was taken in their home neighborhood of Hyde Park, looking north along the lake towards downtown,.
Anne Laurie
@dmsilev:
You know very well our lease doesn’t allow that, unfortunately.
Baud
@PaulW: See the prior thread.
Smiling Mortician
Oh, the music. I am heartfull.
schrodingers_cat
@dmsilev: Thanks to the horrid Republicans, we can’t.
Larkspur
I can’t see him but I know that my redeemer liveth. Okay, shutting up now.
Hal
Ugh. I can’t bring myself to watch.
dmsilev
@PaulW: Check one thread down for the details (and more vile puns then any sane person would want).
Baud
My fellow Americans…
What did you do…?
Thoroughly Pizzled
We were waiting in the weeds for you.
You could never back down
You always had to speak your mind.
dmsilev
@Baud: Well, you nailed the first sentence.
Yarrow
I can’t watch. I’m DVRing it. I’ll check it later. Just not emotionally up for it. Too sad.
Trentrunner
10 to 1 that’s Bernie bro/sis heckling POTUS right now.
Larkspur
WTF is the shouting. Oh stop. Signal loss, bye.
Elizabelle
What was the audience shouting?
Smiling Mortician
@Elizabelle: Four more years.
Elizabelle
“The beating heart of our American idea. Our bold experiment in self-government.”
Ugh. I can’t bear.
He’s more chipper than any of us.
dmsilev
“4 more years. 4 more years.”
Amen. Damn Constitutional Amendment.
debbie
What was that person shouting?
Larkspur
@Smiling Mortician: That was to drown out the single voice shouting.
Suzanne
I got home just in time.
I cannot wrap my head around today.
I fall in love (not romantic, but genuine love) more with POTUS Obama every day.
Smiling Mortician
@Larkspur: I know. But Elizabelle asked.
dmsilev
Refugees coming from across the Rio Grande.
Maybe Obama is planning on goading Trump into stroking out.
JPL
@Hildebrand: What? He hasn’t let me down. He is the person I truly want him to be, and that’s a better person than I am. He does embrace all.
Elizabelle
I don’t know how he and Hillary are going to maintain their composure as the Grifter-Elect is sworn in.
I shall not be watching.
Smiling Mortician
He’s doing a great job. Subtle, but on point. And he always works his way up in his speeches.
Baud
@Elizabelle: Her strength in particular has me feeling ashamed. I’m having difficulty dealing with that.
Larkspur
I’ll have to watch it on line after. Darn. I was so looking forward to this; I wanted to hear this, even if it hurt. I was out with the dog a few hours ago and gusts of wind nearly blew me over, and I am not modelicious, I am sturdy peasant woman. I’m lucky we still have power. Probably just jinxed that. Guess I’ll go find some retrospective pix to look at.
Ella in New Mexico
As big of a bunch of a pain in the asses some of you guys can be, it’s kinda cool to be here during this address. It’s like we’re all sitting in the same recliner chairs in my living room together.
THIS guy is the reason I keep on having hope. A decent, thoughtful, generous person actually won the Presidency not once, but twice. He wasn’t perfect, but he is someone we can all be proud of, an example for generations to come of a leader with conviction and grace who actually made it.
Like I told my youngest who’s 19, “Someday, when you’re grandchildren ask you what it was like when you were a kid, tell them about This Guy.”
Sadly, I’m guessing they won’t believe him.
Smiling Mortician
There he is.
Remind us that you’re more than we deserved, POTUS.
mai naem mobile
I’m DVRing it. Cannot deAL with it. Sad that Lumpys golden showers are overshadowing O’s farewell speech
LAC
@Hildebrand: Thank you! For me, it’s shut the fuck up, you whiny bitches. Goddamn, let him speak. Then tomorrow we are are all hear to listen to BJ’ers drone on about how you would do the job better because you watched the West Wing or Dave.
Patricia Kayden
I have no common purpose with Republicans though.
Hal
I thought I heard a lone person yelling something? Sit the fuck down. Damn.
Elizabelle
“Democracy does require a basic sense of solidarity.”
Um, it has been shattered.
Larkspur
@Smiling Mortician: Cheer him on my behalf. Damn I love him and his family (and of course the dogs). I will be looking forward to what he and Michelle have to say for years and years.
Smiling Mortician
@Hildebrand: Yup. And he’s talking eloquently about the state of our democracy. Howzabout we actually listen to him?
Patricia Kayden
@Elizabelle: Won’t be watching anything Trump does. Will read about him on blogs like these. That’s more than enough.
Baud
Health care FTW.
Mike J
hovercraft
He is being classy but still jabbing the rethugs, the crowd is expressing my feelings. Now he is getting serious, and trying to tell the shitgibbon how to be president.
SiubhanDuinne
@Smiling Mortician:
What a novel idea.
MomSense
@Ella in New Mexico:
Cheers, Ella. Best President in generations.
Bostondreams
Great points about the changing nature of work
rikyrah
@Elizabelle:
I can’t watch
SiubhanDuinne
I cannot help noticing that he has beautiful long fingers.
Anne Laurie
@Elizabelle:
If you had his job, wouldn’t you be happy to give up that burden?
No matter how much you privately regretted what your replacement would do with it?
Suzanne
Talking about a new social compact. Vision.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne: Heh.
Elizabelle
It’s hard to listen to this and realize that the shittiest in America voted in the worst president-elect in over a century. Someone who is indebted to a foreign adversary.
Larkspur
@Mike J: Oh thank you. Very cool pix.
Baud
FU John Roberts.
Suzanne
@SiubhanDuinne: You know what they say.
JPL
What a speech!
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: What did he do now?
Baud
Woohoo!
Patricia Kayden
Love that he’s addressing race head on.
hovercraft
Yes you fucking “economically anxious” pieces of shit, the economy by any measure you want to look at, is better than it’s been in a very long time. He did that with democrats while you all did everything you could to sabotage him. He’s giving you all this and your response is to elect someone who is nominating the wealthiest cabinet in history to come and destroy all he built all over again.
Elizabelle
“Workers fighting for scraps while the wealthy withdraw into their private enclaves.”
“The economy doesn’t have to be a zero sum game.” Biggest diff between him and the GOP.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: “post-racial”
Mary G
Workers will be fighting for scraps while the wealthy withdraw farther into their private enclaves. Preach Potus.
debbie
Atticus!
Elizabelle
Atticus Finch. But from which book?
donnah
I wasn’t going to watch, but I couldn’t bear to miss him speaking one last time. He was the best President of my lifetime and I’m glad my adult sons had him as a political figure they could look up to.
Beyond that, I feel a desperate sense of dread and an underlying panic over what lies ahead. It cannot be overstated: Trump and the Republicans are going to run our country into the ground. And the people who voted for Trump are not going to regret it, because the destruction of our government is what they’ve been craving for years. Trump just makes it possible.
So Farewell to our best, and hoping we can survive what lies ahead.
Suzanne
I adore him so much. This is going to destroy me.
debbie
@Hildebrand: @LAC:
You both misread her words. Give them another try.
Mary G
We have to pay attention to the middle aged white guy who’s seen his world upended. Such grace.
Suzanne
“The equal treatment that our founders promised.”
Preach.
Identity politics forever. Or at least until it’s not a problem.
hovercraft
@Patricia Kayden:
Yes he is being nice and blunt, stop pitting us against each other while you rob us blind.
Bostondreams
wow. ‘word for word said about the Irish, the Italians, the Poles.’ awesome
Elizabelle
“The effects of slavery and Jim Crow didn’t just vanish in the 1960s.
… Not special treatment, the equal treatment that our founders promised.”
Thank you, thank you for addressing that.
And a plug for embracing immigrants and newcomers.
Darkrose
I can’t watch, so I’m glad y’all are here.
Patricia Kayden
“We all have to try harder”.
Larkspur
@Suzanne: I need to find Obama banners, for the resistance.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden: Even me?
danielx
@Spanky:
Help me out….the Full Luther?
Elizabelle
@hovercraft:
That would make a bumpersticker. Well said, hovercraft.
And he takes up bubbles and social media feeds. Naked partisanship.
Makes this great sorting seem natural and inevitable.
Baud
Baud! 2020!:. Naked partisanship!
Suzanne
The third threat is apparently DUMBASSERY.
Well, we’re fucked.
JPL
@debbie: What a speech, and I’m so impressed. Obama unleashed!
dmsilev
@Larkspur: Maybe we should put some “Miss me yet?” billboards up around the country, just like conservatives did for Bush in 2009.
Suzanne
@Larkspur: I have my Obama yard sign hanging in my garage. I adore it.
Spanky
SCIENCE!
Patricia Kayden
President Obama knows how to throw shade and drink tea.
dmsilev
Science and reason matter.
This is now apparently a partisan issue.
Bostondreams
‘A common baseline of facts’
Yeah, it was nice when we had that. :/
Drunkenhausfrau
Facts, science and reason matter. Bless him. He’s making reality an issue!
Iowa Old Lady
@danielx: Luther, the president’s anger manager? You’ve seen that bit?
Gravenstone
@PaulW: Next thread down.
Elizabelle
“Without a willingness to admit new information … and that science and reason matter ….”
It’s a slap at the ignorance that voted in an awful successor.
“Reality has a way of catching up with you.”
This is an incredibly blunt speech.
Larkspur
@dmsilev: Billboards, check.
SiubhanDuinne
@Larkspur:
I still have my 2008 Obama-Biden yard sign.
JMG
There’s about 25 percent of the electorate that can’t stand that Obama was a black President. Then there’s 20 percent more who can’t stand that he was a black President who did a good job and worse, that helped THEM. It’s too humiliating to be borne.
Drunkenhausfrau
Essential spirit of problem solving and innovation… he’s killing me.
We are about to enter a new dark age of dumbassery…
hovercraft
@Baud:
Especially you if you are going to lead us out of this dark period we are entering. It is up to you to lead us back out of these gold showers now contaminating the land, we need clean clear air and water to breath and live free.
WaterGirl
Independent Press
Suzanne
I hope President Obama takes a bold stand in favor of eating food or not hitting oneself in the head with a hammer.
dmsilev
Climate change is real.
This whole speech reminds me of what Richard Feynman wrote in his report on the Challenger explosion: “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.”
Mary G
Ooh Putin’s gonna be pissed.
Larkspur
@Elizabelle:
Now there’s a bumpersticker and a t-shirt. And billboards.
Patricia Kayden
@JMG: There are also purists on the Left who can’t stand our President. Sick of them as well.
Spanky
Which autocrat do you suppose he’s talking about?
Mike J
@JMG:
And then there are the ones who hate him so much they pay hookers to piss on a bed he once slept in.
dmsilev
@Suzanne: I remain deeply disappointed that he never made any PSAs about the dangers of drinking bleach and licking live power outlets.
WaterGirl
@Spanky: I thought the same thing.
Patricia Kayden
Several standing ovations.
Thoroughly Pizzled
What did we do to deserve you? Something good, I guess.
Ruviana
@hovercraft: Lol I briefly thought you were quoting Obama’s speech!
Suzanne
@dmsilev: He’s got ten days left. A girl can dream.
Larkspur
@dmsilev: Just about the only criticism I can think of right now.
SiubhanDuinne
@Patricia Kayden:
Multitasking.
Patricia Kayden
“Democracies can buckle when they give in to fear.”
hovercraft
@Patricia Kayden:
That’s what I’m loving about the speech.
4 more years.
lamh36
@keithboykin 21s22 seconds ago
“Democracy can buckle when it gives into fear.” #ObamaFarewell
Elizabelle
“Democracy can buckle when it gives in to fear. …. Guard against a weakening of the values that make us who we are.”
Although, I don’t see the problem as external and due to Muslim extremists. Our problem is within, with those who polarize us and lie, on purpose.
debbie
@JPL:
I can’t help but hope my misguided family members are watching this.
dm
This is going to be one of those farewell speeches that goes into the history books alongside Washington’s.
Assuming there are history books, I guess.
Patricia Kayden
Republican heads exploding en masse when POTUS just spoke out against anti-Muslim discrimination.
hovercraft
Shit just got real, fear of change, difference, autocrats, authoritarians, theses are the biggest threats to our democracy. I think that’s a twofer, Shitgibbon and Putin.
Spanky
Going down a checklist, rejecting things Trump’s for. Gitmo, surveillance, Muslim registry …
Elizabelle
“Which brings me to my final point.”
Moans from the audience.
p.a.
We better hope Bamz wasn’t a once-in-a-generation leader because we’re gonna need Franklin Delano Barack Truman Lincoln as next Pres to have a shot at fixing what these fuckwits are going to do soon.
Spanky
“Final point”, and the crowd says “nooooooo!”
Elizabelle
“We should reduce the corrosive influence of money in our politics …… when congress is dysfunctional” — and he brings up gerrymandering. That’s got to go.
Patricia Kayden
“All of this depends on our participation.”
amk
go fucking vote.
amen.
hovercraft
I loved this line.
“Guard against the weakening of the values that make us who we are.”
WaterGirl
He’s trying to teach us how to move forward in the times to come.
Patricia Kayden
@hovercraft: He is reading Republicans like a book tonight. Reading them for filth.
JPL
There will be tweets…
I am so glad that I was wrong.. It is a come together speech, but for all citizens to come together.
suck on that Trump..
Elizabelle
Quoting from George Washington.
But I would say that our “sacred ties” are pretty damn broken.
Elizabelle
He’s cautioning against something that has already happened. It is here. By design.
hovercraft
@Ruviana:
I was, he was passing the baton to our very own Baud, what did you all miss that bit?
amk
without examining our role in electing shit gabbons.
Spanky
Some of them are malevolent, POTUS.
Patricia Kayden
@Spanky: Hence Trump.
Mike J
Hope he finishes with “today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”
debbie
@JPL:
As we speak, both he and Kellyann in fact.
dmsilev
@JPL: A whole stream of them, probably. (sorry)
lamh36
The Constitution is a gift but just a piece of parchment. We give it power. We give it meaning.” – POTUS #ObamaFarewell
hovercraft
@JPL:
Golden hued tweets raining down on all of us?
dmsilev
Leave the Internet and talk to people in real life? Sorry, can’t do that.
Spanky
“Real life”? Is he nuts?
Baud
People get tired of arguing with people on the internet?
Ruviana
@hovercraft: I figured it out but initially thought, “Did he really go there?”
lamh36
@DavidCornDC 35s36 seconds ago
Obama: “If youāre tired of arguing with strangers on the internet, try to talk with one in real life.” #AdviceForTrump
Thoroughly Pizzled
Jill Stein, Cornel West and their cynical ilk can go die in a bonfire.
Elizabelle
“If you’re tired of arguing with strangers on the internet, try talking with them in real life.”
Applause line of the night.
“Lace up your shoes and do some organizing” …. and then, “Run for office yourself. Show up. Dive in. Stay at it.”
“Presuming a reservoir of goodwill in other people” … and I lost the rest of the quote.
Talks about faith in America and in Americans being confirmed. That’s rather sunny.
Of course, Hillary did get 3 million more votes.
Larkspur
@Elizabelle: We got broke in the Civil War and in Jim Crow and in all the times when we fucked things up nearly beyond recognition, and we still got Obama, so we have to keep going. I think I believe this.
lamh36
@MattMurph24 16s17 seconds ago
Shorter POTUS: Get off your asses and stop whining
Mike E
Cubbies are like, “Wait for us!”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I resemble that remark!
LAC
@Patricia Kayden: reading a lot of people for filth. Yass!
Schlemazel
@danielx:
A Key and Peele bit where one does a dead on impression of Obama while Luther (his anger interrupter since as a black man he is not allowed to show anger) says “what he really means”
Look it up on youtube, well worth the minutes as it is funny and cathartic.
lamh36
@wadnerpierre 2m2 minutes ago
Don’t blame the leaders we elect but examine our role in electing them to paraphrase @POTUS. #ObamaFaweelSpeech #Chicago
slag
Still not buying this whole “faith in America” schtick. Two words that should never ever be put together: President Trump. Sorry, Mr. President. Will still miss you!
hovercraft
I’m tired of arguing with strangers on the internet !
No more trolls!
No more trolls!
Elizabelle
Look of devotion at Michelle.
“Girl of the Southside.”
WaterGirl
IF they play city of blinding lights again at the end of this I am not going to be able to stop crying. It takes me back as if it were yesterday.
Patricia Kayden
Shout out to Michelle!
JPL
Now I’m crying.
Patricia Kayden
Malia is crying. Awww.
WaterGirl
Michelle dressed in the color of mourning.
Suzanne
Michelle.
Oh Lord.
I love these two so, so much.
JPL
Now he’s crying..
LAC
Oh man shit just got teary.
debbie
Okay, now I’m weepy.
Elizabelle
Malia’s wiping her eyes.
This is hard for his family. It’s hard, when you wanted the ebullience of talking happily of how Hillary could build on accomplishments.
Suzanne
He’s crying. I’m crying. We’re all crying.
Bostondreams
Oh my gosh I am going to miss this family.
Elizabelle
Michelle is not smiling.
Larkspur
@Patricia Kayden: Oh, Malia. I hope I live long enough to vote for you.
Patricia Kayden
Shout out to Joe!
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: Yeah. She realizes how funereal this is.
Some thank you, you fucked up Americans who voted for a fool as successor. You are going to learn the hard way.
SiubhanDuinne
They LOVE Barack, but they LOOOOOVE Michelle!
Elizabelle
I love that he refers to Joe Biden as a brother. That he gained a brother.
Suzanne
Joey B.
“I gained a brother.”
Oh fuck.
amk
A man of class.
Mary G
Malia weepy and Michelle my best friend are giving all the feels. I need the Kleenex now.
RareSanity
Shit…Uncle Joe is teary?
Who the hell is cutting onions around here?
hovercraft
Malia, I want to give her a hug. I was holding it together, till I saw her tears.
wenchacha
This lovefest won’t go over well in some dark corners. But I fucking love it. Thank you, President Obama. You brought us your very best.
Larkspur
@Elizabelle: We have to remember how unusually cool their relationship has been. That was a bonus.
lamh36
I love that unlike some, PBO has never shied away from showing emotion and actually shedding real tears.
Elizabelle
Gonna watch this speech again later on C-Span.
MomSense
@WaterGirl:
I’m a wreck.
JPL
This is Chuck Todd
Maybe he’ll now ask the tough questions..
Lizzy L
Yeah, I’m crying. I never cry.
I cannot believe this amazing, honorable, eloquent man is to be followed by T.
Elizabelle
The staff looks sad too. Jack Lew, etc.
patroclus
Wow – he’s really nailing this speech!
Patricia Kayden
“I will be right there with you as a citizen for my remaining days”
SiubhanDuinne
Crying so hard.
Mr Stagger Lee
@p.a.: I am thinking ofd that song by Tina Turner, We Don’t Another Hero.
WaterGirl
Barack wants us to fight for our country, fight for our democracy.
Patricia Kayden
End of an era.
A Ghost to Most
What, no mic drop?
Best President of my lifetime
WaterGirl
Did Malia not come tonight?
edit: I meant Sasha.
dmsilev
Yes.
We.
Can.
Farewell, President Obama. Sigh.
Suzanne
@lamh36: He so clearly genuinely adores his wife. It is just lovely to watch.
amk
Thank you, Mr President. You are one of a kind. And you will always be.
SiubhanDuinne
“Yes we can. Yes we did.”
Mike J
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C124Y9lUoAAC078.jpg
Elizabelle
I think we could see some anger and rage as the transition to someone who does not belong in the White House, and the administration of kleptocrats, continues.
Strikes me that people could get very angry and strike out as the transition becomes more real. A fine line to walk.
Mnemosyne
@JPL:
I’m not on Twitter, so somebody please tell Chuck Todd to go fuck himself with a big bag of salted dicks. Gosh, Chuck, maybe somebody should have told the American people about this looming disaster for our democracy. Maybe someone in the media with a national platform.
Nah, you were too busy telling us what a nice person Kellyanne Conway was.
Wag
BRUUUUUUUUCCCCEEEEE!!!!!!
Emma
I had promised myself I wouldn’t cry. But dammit. What is wrong with people that look at this man and see an enemy?
HeleninEire
Yeah well
Wag
@dmsilev:
This. A thousand times, this.
Larkspur
@WaterGirl: Yeah, things have gotten ugly before, and our progress has been distorted and set back, but like fake-Hills said on SNL, I’m not giving up and neither should you. If Bamz is out there, I have to go out there too.
Mary G
@WaterGirl: Malian is there, but not Sasha. Maybe they didn’t want her to miss school. They have the right priorities.
Elizabelle
No Sasha.
Quinerly
@WaterGirl:
I was just asking where is Sasha?
dmsilev
@JPL:
Hope springs eternal.
Elizabelle
That was the fastest 53 minutes ever.
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
Unfortunately, I think we will, and I don’t think it will be traced in an easy line to one side or the other, because disturbed people don’t usually hew exactly to one side. Think of Jared Loughner, who was not specifically on the right or left, but who was moved to violence by the violent atmosphere around him (and all of us).
Iowa Old Lady
And we close with Springsteen.
Spanky
And so it goes.
jake the antisoshul soshulist
@JPL:
About what eas expected. My only disappointment was they didn’t play
the “whitey tape”.
WaterGirl
I’m guess that Sasha thought she would be too emotional and didn’t want to be on display publicly. Assuming I am right, I love that they let it be her choice.
debbie
@Suzanne:
It really is.
Elizabelle
I just want Barack and Michelle to have long, full lives.
He threw down the challenges tonight. Did not mince words.
Suspect redstate is spluttering and going Yosemite Sam as we speak.
Iowa Old Lady
@Quinerly: Maybe in DC because it’s a school night?
GregB
Breaking news: Pizza-gate conspiracy investigators declare insufficient evidence to prove Putingate.
JPL
@Elizabelle: He’s going to keep up the good fight..
I guess this will be on Seth Myers tonight
Larkspur
@WaterGirl: If I was Sasha, I’d be in bed surrounded by snoring Portuguese water dogs, Good night, Sasha. Oh, I’m gonna lose power any second now. Lights are blinking. Wind is as fierce as it has been all day and all evening.
patroclus
That was so epic! And so was the speech! The longest uninterrupted period of job growth ever! Saved the country and the world from another Great Depression. Health care! Same-sex marriage! Rapproachment with Cuba and Iran! Stock markets at record highs! Wall street reform with Dodd-Frank! Saved the auto industry! Expanded national wilderness and national park areas. Two really good USSC Justices. Ended DADT. Energy independence and and irreversible move towards green energy. Ended (sort of) two wars. Regained world respect for America! A Nobel Peace prize! Brought OBL to justice. Excited and energized young Americans the most since JFK. And so much more.
Ksmiami
I want to decimate the GOP and make them so tainted that they are thoroughly destroyed forever. Start now- they represent everything wrong with the country.
Mary G
We are living in an historic time, fer sure. Thanks, Obama.
hovercraft
@WaterGirl: It was Sasha who’s not there.
SiubhanDuinne
@Suzanne:
It is. As is his genuine deep friendship with Joe Biden (“brother”).
WaterGirl
I came across something I wrote on the Obama blog in March of 2008.
edit: I love this man so much. Michelle, too.
ChrisB
Just can’t believe that Obama’s presidency is being followed by . . . Donald Trump’s. How completely f’ ed up is that.
Elizabelle
@Larkspur: Good luck to you, Larkspur. Are you in Northern California?
Love a fierce wind, but the electric is good too.
Elizabelle
I am not crying.
I am angry. That we have to trade this president for someone not fit, with a staff of paid liars. Liars. Liars. Liars.
WaterGirl
@Larkspur: Wind has been crazy here today, too.
geg6
@Suzanne:
I had mine framed on acid-free backing. It hangs in my sunroom alongside a collage with tickets from rallies and my pro-Obamacare protest sign, bumper stickers, car magnets, fliers and door hangers from canvassing, every Christmas card from all eight years and the photo from the day I met him and Uncle Joe right after the 2008 DNC. I’m never taking them down and I’ve left them to my youngest niece in my will. For real.
CaseyL
I cannot process this, cannot get over the soaring decency of the man. That he can come out of the last 8 years, and especially the last 2 months, and still have such faith in American and in Americans … it floors me and it makes me ashamed of my own cynicism.
Mike E
@Elizabelle: 8 years, in a flash
Elizabelle
@Ksmiami: Yep. They do.
WaterGirl
@hovercraft: I corrected myself a second after I wrote the wrong name, but it was too late. ;-)
Larkspur
@Elizabelle: Yep, just north of San Francisco. Still have lights, despite flickering, but I’m safe and anyway, losing power is good practice for a possible future world lit only by fire. I kid. I hope. And anyway I have flashlights, not matches.
JPL
@ChrisB: You and Josh Marshall
japa21
Sure, there were a lot of platitudes, but there were also a lot of statements which were straight forward challenges of Trump. And believe me, Trump won’t resist reacting.
And basically, he acknowledged the last election did not go well, and he specifically singled out Russia, without mentioning names, for its threat to our democracy. But his basic message was, “we accomplished a lot this past 8 years and if you don’t want to see it go up in smoke, get your ass in gear and get working. Don’t moan about the past, do something about the future.”
Larkspur
@geg6: That is intensely cool.
Elizabelle
@Larkspur:
LOL.
Do not trip over a dog in the dark.
Timurid
Very good speech. I was skeptical earlier today, worried that this would be as tame as his Russia speech.
It’s academic, anyway. He could have stood there for an hour reading from the DC phone book. There’s nothing he can say that will mess with Trump more than the pain train that ran over the Donald this evening…
debbie
@JPL:
What, he slept through it?
lamh36
@Quinerly: School night
Elizabelle
@japa21: Very true. Marching orders.
dmsilev
Finally, and with total sincerity and absolutely no snark: Thanks, Obama. Thanks for everything.
Cacti
Barack H. Obama is the only man I have ever thought of as “my President” rather than “the President”.
I can’t imagine I’ll see his like again in my lifetime.
Miss Bianca
@Mr Stagger Lee:
Little Monk: Unhappy the land that has no heroes.
Galileo: No. Unhappy the land that needs heroes.
Bertolt Brecht, Life of Galileo
Larkspur
@Elizabelle: Check. Don’t want to alienate my source of warmth and affection.
catclub
Did George W Bush even give a farewell address?
burnspbesq
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
You have everything you need? Happy to go get gas, or matches.
Larkspur
@catclub: It was little noted nor long remembered.
Baud
@catclub: “Oops.”
Jeffro
@Cacti:
Well, let’s hope…
Oh and seconded, btw.
A speech for the ages. So many things in there that are hard to argue with, right Republicans?
hovercraft
@JPL:
So is she saying that her boss is too stupid to understand what he was briefed about, because if so, there is a chance that she accidentally spoke the truth.
Nah she is full of shit and lying her ass off, she is laying the groundwork for tomorrows presser, which will probably be cancelled.
debbie
Don’t mean to revert to hippie days, but don’t it always seem to go you don’t know what you got til it’s gone.
dmsilev
@catclub: Yeah, about a week or so before Obama took office. I don’t really remember much about it.
(searches Google). Yep, pretty banal. Lots of stuff about 9/11 and the War on Terrah, and some anecdotes of people who he thought did good things, but needless to say, nothing like what we just heard.
Baud
@debbie: I knew what we had, and I watched us squander it in real time.
Ksmiami
@Jeffro: fuck the Republicans let’s take our country back
Mary G
@geg6: That is a brilliant. My Republican-from-1944-to-2008 mom let our neighbor put a “Hope” sign in our yard and saved it in the garage. I’m going to get it framed and hang it on the wall.
The C-SPAN feed is awesome. They are still working the crowd and PBO was holding a sleeping infant maybe six weeks old so tenderly. I’m still crying.
amk
@Baud: Yup. In less than two fucking years.
Larkspur
@Baud: True, but we still had it and no one can disappear it. They’re trying but they’ll fail. We had it, it happened, it was a real thing that happened for eight years.
JPL
@debbie: If that is true, the only thing I can imagine is that they used big boy words
Maybe Flynn was busy and couldn’t translate for him.
JPL
@catclub: Of course, and it was quite memorable.
fyi.. I have no idea personally, and wondered about that.
HeleninEire
@Baud: Are you a hippie? New news to mee
Another Scott
@Larkspur: I recently got a bunch of these bumper stickers. I’m thinking of trying to pass some out at the Women’s March on the 21st.
Great speech. It’s mind boggling that so many people hate him so much that they refuse to even to listen to such a moving address. :-( Unfortunately, Hillary is in that boat, too…
Cheers,
Scott.
Mary G
Ugh. The C-SPAN callers are the worst.
Mnemosyne
@ChrisB:
Ain’t that America?
Cacti
I just want to sob like a 2-year old that we’re losing this man as POTUS.
Anne Laurie
@catclub:
IIRC, at a DC-area military academy, where he knew the audience was forbidden to heckle him.
What’s the military version of ‘side eye’?
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
That is very cool. You should send it to him again, now, with a brief cover note.
Cacti
Trump never mentioned the real reason for the wall:
To keep all of us in here with him.
:-(
hellslittlestangel
He’s my President For Life.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: If I ever stop crying, maybe I will. :-)
pepper
my 17 year old daughter went to the speech. the word she used was ‘life-changing’.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
Know what you mean. I’m not fit to drive quite yet.
JPL
@pepper: Lucky girl.
WaterGirl
This is great: Obama: “The Best Is Yet To Come”
debbie
@AdamWeinstein:
As a person of faith I’m amazed so many Christians spurned a POTUS who invokes grace accurately and vibrantly to elect a burlap sack of id
debbie
@pepper:
Bet she remembers it forever.
WaterGirl
From the link above at #300:
Yarrow
You guys are so brave to watch it. I couldn’t bring myself to do it today. Recorded it. Will watch it when I’m able. Might be months. I don’t know…
President Obama is the first and only president I have ever thought of as “my” president. He’s our president. The President of all of us. Whether we agree with him or not, he took that responsibility seriously. I will miss him more than I can say.
Elizabelle
@pepper: So glad daughterpepper got to go. Life-changing is the word.
I know we sound like cultists. LOL. But this was the best and most inspiring president. I guess JFK was inspiring for his grace and intelligence and humor too. (I was too little to catch his speeches in real time.)
Spanky
@pepper: Tell her that means a lot to some anonymous old farts on the internet. That says “hope”.
Omnes Omnibus
So I watched the Farewell speech and Denial this evening. I am in kind of a weird place at the moment.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: Thank you for that link.
Elizabelle
Fresh thread.
zhena gogolia
@Darkrose:
I’ll have to read this thread tomorrow. And maybe some day, if we’ve survived Trump, I’ll watch the speech. Just can’t right now.
pepper
@Spanky: i will pass that on to her. she will want to know that for sure. :-) i know she was inspired by what she heard tonight, and i suspect that with time, it becomes more meaningful to her.
Elizabelle
@zhena gogolia: I understand that.
It was actually easier to watch than I’d expected.
And I am still mad. Gonna be mad for a few years now.
Tazj
@Spanky:”Anonymous old farts on the internet”. That mad me laugh. Yes, I’m one of them. @pepper: How cool! What a beautiful speech. I didn’t want to watch but I’m very glad I did.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: Thanks! I actually got to that link from this at the Washington Monthly: Same title, but different article: I liked this quote from Michelle:
pepper
@debbie: no doubt this is seared into her memory. since the quality of presidential oratory is about to drop like a stone, i am glad she got to hear the best.
pepper
@Elizabelle: i was too young to hear kennedy, too. daughterpepper knows i was on the obama train from very early on, and i would like to (very selfishly) think that i had a small hand in shaping her desire to hang out in 0 degree weather to try to get a ticket.
Smiling Mortician
@Miss Bianca: Nice reference.
Ingressus Sum
Never have I felt so “Lucky to Live Hawaii” than after watching President Obama’s Farewell Address!!!!!
Gemina13
Even as my heart breaks, I know none of us have seen the last of Barack Obama. And that’s a good thing. He’s needed, and for now he needs some time to rest, recover from the constant beatings he’s taken over the last 8 years. I daresay we’re going to see a lot more of NoFucksGiven Obama when he does come back.
By contrast, people can’t wait to see the back of Trump. And I know it’s killing him. Good.
Michelle
@Larkspur: our president now. Donald Trymp to come. Lets stand united as a country. God bless!