President Barack Hussein Obama

Notes on the election

:: Even if Obama is on the phone right now plotting with his Muslim brothers and his Christian minister about how best to impose upon us his radical secular agenda this is a great day in history. A black man of modest background is president of the United States, chosen by the people, over a rich, white aristo. To borrow from John Stewart, after too many years of being a "tell" country, we are finally a "show" country again. After years of giving lip service to freedom and democracy abroad while our president took active steps to undermine it at home we are living up to our creed and the promise of our founding documents and showing that in America all men are equal.

:: ....and call me sacrilegious but when the news flashed on the screen that Obama had won and I saw on Fox News the jubilant scene from Chicago, I recalled the words of the Psalm ... hazorim bdima brina yikzoru. Ranger fans, Red Sox fans, and yes, Jews, too, should understand what I mean. This moment, no matter what wrong steps might follow, what errors Obama might commit, is significant and historic. I draw comparisons to the establishment of the state of Israel. Like that day in 1948, yesterday marks the end of a long struggle, the dawn of a new era, a day when we have forcefully demonstrated that a long despised minority is entitled to the same rights, privileges and pleasures as anyone else, and that some extra melanin is no disqualification from high office.

:: Speaking of dreams... Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico, and Florida voted for the Democrat. Virginia, the cradle of confederacy, the Old Dominion, chose a black Democrat and the country as a whole did what I've been I've been dreaming it would for four years: The policies, positions, and practices of George W. Bush have been repudiated. The chimp is done. The smirk erased. The stain removed.

:: I owe the people of middle America an apology. Four years ago I wrote you off as fools. I believed you would always fall for smear campaigns, always allow your fears to overcome your reason, that you would always put Jesus and gay marriage ahead of everything else. Last night, you demonstrated that I was wrong, that my impressions were mistaken, and that I had stereotyped you unfairly. I hope none of us live to regret the decision you made last night. For now, I'm simply grateful and relieved that you aren't the knee-jerk bumpkins Karl Rove took you for.

:: If Obama proves to be the sort of frat boy failure Bush was, I promise to point it out --no free passes for any politician - for today, though I'm just proud to be an American, proud that our msitakes can be corrected, that wrong courses can be re-plotted. Proud that this country is everything we were taught it was.