We had a party last night, we made a cake...
... well, actually, we had it made. Ellie's idea. And invited the neighbors in. Everyone was euphoric. We watched Barack and Michelle dance--she gorgeous in her ivory gown, he, well, handsome. Our spirits lifted with the champagne... Would have done, even without!
I thought Obama gave a terrific Inaugural Address, though it sounded a bit more like a State of the Union than an Inaugural. Appropriately. Our new young President struck the right note, as he seems so often effortlessly to do. There's repair work to be done, in addition to the building. He managed, skillfully, and in the nicest possible way, to repudiate everything Bush had stood for. And not only Bush, of course: his repudiation went all the way back to Ronald Reagan, the disastrous practice of a "trickle-down" economy that predictably failed to trickle down, and the politics of the slow, deliberate strangulation of government. Mercilessly, Obama exposed the futility of these policies, and the damage they have wreaked upon the country. He did not hold back.
And now it's not just his job, as he has so often pointed out. It's our job. To judge from the crowds gathered in freezing weather on the Washington Mall and from their response to his accession to the presidency, he has us in his hands. If we allow the nay-sayers to prevail--on the left as well as the right--he is done for, and so are we as a nation. As the somewhat hackneyed but still truthful message on the cake repeats, "We Are One." Have to be. No option. And our new President makes it clear that he understands that this is true for the world as well as for the country he has been elected to lead. I wish him well.
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