A Teardrop Falls

Kodak commercials aside, I'm not one given even a tiny bit to cheap sentiment or easy emotion. But I'll admit that tears welled when I saw Barack Obama rise to take the Oath of Office as president of the United States.

Too many people much smarter and more eloquent than myself have spilled rivers of ink capturing what Obama's election means for completing the project that is America. All I can add is, "Fuckin' A! Forty years from Martin Luther King's assassination to a black president. Is this a great country, or what?"

Of course, it's easy for me to say that because I have a nice place to live, and overfilled belly, and, for now, money in the bank and work on my desk. Too many people in this country aren't as comfortable. So many people around the world aren't as comfortable that they are probably the ones who should move me to tears.

Electing Obama represents a very small part of what is best about America. To fully realize the American dream, as Obama noted,

There is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and
swift, and we will act -- not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new
foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric
grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will
restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to
raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and
the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will
transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a
new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Accomplishing any one of those things would be a tall order. Indeed, most presidential administrations have failed to even make progress toward a single one of the goals Obama listed.

I got the feeling this afternoon, though, that Congress and most American citizens finally stand ready to make the hard choices and do the hard work to prove that our "ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. ... [And] that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more."

So God guide you, Mr. President. Make the right choices, and we will follow.