HAIL TO THE CHIEF

YES WE DID! There isn't much that will get me out of bed before 8:00 a.m. but there I was by 8:30, transfixed in front of the television along with millions of others in this country and abroad, watching Barack Hussein Obama take the oath of office as the 44th President of the United States of America (I often cringe at the bare term, United States, as Mexico is officially the United States of Mexico - how many can you name?)
There haven't been many times in my life when I've been proud to be an American, but today was one. Everywhere I went I found people excited by today's events - from the desk attendant at the rehab pool I go to, who greeted me with a "YES WE DID! to a young man from my church who said at last he feels safe. And isn't it a nice twist of irony that the leader of the party that is now in power invoked many of the things we traditionally associate with the other party: a strong defense, fiscal soundness and the red white and blue, The outgoing president was today stripped of its failed portfolio by a man of Kenya and Kansas, Hawaii and Indonesia, whose middle name is Hussein, and who embodies in his person the American dream. YES WE CAN - and YES WE DID!
I must add that I am already weary of the comparisons of Obama to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Abraham Lincoln. He is neither. He is his own man and it is unfair to lay upon him a mantle only history can bestow. As the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal bishiop from New Hampshire said at one of the prayer services, we need to remember that Obama is a human being and not expect him to be superhuman. I am also loathe to mention the fate that befell both Lincoln and King, and we - and the Secret Service and law enforcement officers - must do everything in our power to prevent any harm coming to this promising young man and I invite you to pray with me that God will protect him and his family for many years to come. Frankly, Obama makes me think more of another American martyr, JFK because of his youth, his enthisiasm, his liberal values, and his powerful rhetoric, not to mention his children running around the White House. There was plenty of skepticism - and prejudice in 1961 about electing a Catholic as President, but he proved his detractors wrong, just as I am confident Obama will do in 2009 and beyond.
I enjoy the pomp and pageantry that surround an event such as today's. Some of the highlights for me were the beautiful Capitol building festooned in red, white and blue, the poise of California Senator Dianne Feinstein at the microphone, and Aretha Franklin in her beautiful hat singing My Country, 'Tis of Thee. I also deeply appreciated Colin Powell's words to George Stephanopoulis that "Now we have a President who is qualified and competent (read, dig at Bush), who happens to be African American." Yes indeed. I hope we won't make as much of the color of his skin as the conent of his character.
So here's to the forty-fourth President of the United States of America. God bless Barack Obama, and God bless America!