Politics

21 hours to go, and counting

As of this moment, there are about twenty-one hours until 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time on January 21, 2009, when this guy will be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States:

President Barack Obama
President Barack Obama

And for the first time in nearly a decade, I’m finally going to be able to say, “I’m an American” without cringing. I’m sick of BushCorp, an administration more corrupt and more beholden to corporate interests than any we’ve seen in a very long time. While Bush may not have been the very worst President in the history of the United States of America (I personally believe that honor belongs to James Buchanan, under whose administration the nation quite literally fell apart), Bush’s role in the mess that our country is in now simply cannot be denied. I’m looking forward to a President and an administration which values the rule of law, and places at least some value on the Constitution and the values that made our nation great in the first place. I’m sick of a President whose interest in political promotion and whose grandstanding and pandering to right-wing special interest groups overshadowed any progress he could have made for our nation, both at home and abroad. I’m also just sick of a President who wouldn’t hesitate to fling our nation into wars which are unaffordable, morally unjustified, and politically disastrous.

I’m looking forward to a President who seems to act with integrity, and who understands the seriousness and the gravity of the position that he holds. Bush, for all his talk of how he was a “uniter” and “the decider” never quite grasped, in my opinion, just what it meant to be President. Obama hasn’t even been sworn in yet, but already he’s done more to restore the integrity and dignity of an office which got drowned in cowboy diplomacy and a President more suited to the frat house than to the White House.

Barack Obama won’t be the perfect President. From time to time, those of us who voted for him with the highest of hopes will be disappointed, and that disappointment will hurt. Some of us may even end up feeling betrayed.

Honestly, though, after what we’ve been through since Bush “won” the election in 2000, it’s hard to imagine that we could end up with anything worse.