Inauguration Day

It is Tuesday, January 20th and we have a new president. Today, Kate and I drove home and sat in the living room of our house and watched the inauguration of the first African-American president. It was a cold day, here and in Washington, and thousands of people stood on the mall between the Western side of the Capitol and the Washington Monument. They didn't seem that cold.

I think that President Obama is a good, intelligent man. I appreciate the grace with which he and Senator McCain handled the election. I also appreciate the graciousness with which President Bush handled the transition of power.

Overall, the beauty of the American system was shown today when one party turned power over to the other major party, without bloodshed and struggle.

Thomas Jefferson, I have heard, said that we need a revolution every seven years or so. Today, I believe, we saw one in many ways.

When I was born in 1956, few adults could probably foresee the day in which the son of a Kenyan and a caucasion from Kansas, the child of a broken home, raised by a single mother, one who lived overseas for a time, one who had been partially educated in a Moslem school in Indonesia, one who was born in Hawaii, which had only been a state for a short time, could become president of the United States.

Any one of the those attributes would have disqualified him in the eyes of most Americans in 1956. Whether he does a good job or otherwise, he should be honored for showing the opportunity we Americans have in this country, despite our beginnings.

Today, perhaps, the only character flaw we might see is his cigarette smoking.

It is a brave, new world.