A New President

It's taken a while for it to sink in that we're finally getting a new President.  I know we have an election every 4 years, and I know that you're only allowed to serve 2 terms as President, but somehow I just expected Dick Cheney to define a new position of "Supreme Leader" or something like that to allow "W" to rule indefinitely.  All signs indicate this is not the case though, and that Barack Hussein Obama will be sworn in as our next President in January.  Even though I still don't know what Gore or Kerry would've done, I think I'll always regret having voted for "W" twice.  The tax breaks were nice, but was it worth it now that I have to take my shoes off every week at the airport?

Oh yeah, and I'm tired of people not using his middle name.  We use middle names when we talk about our Presidents, and I think it's stupid to not use his just because it was (unfortunately) shared with Saddam.  The name Hussein is probably like "Jones" in the Muslim world, Barack's dad was a Muslim, and I'm over it.  Here's a news flash - not all Arabs are Muslim, not all Muslims are Islamic terrorists.  Heck, Harry Truman was so distraught about not having a middle name he invented one.

I saw a great interview on 60 minutes last night with Barack and Michelle Obama and I couldn't get over how normal they are.  They seem more human than the Bush family, more down to Earth.  They're both really smart.  They poke fun at each other, they're concerned about making sure their daughters can lead as normal a life as possible in the White House, they know the road ahead will be challenging.   Watching the interview made me wonder what people felt like when JFK was elected.  There's another beautiful family that brought change to Washington.  I think America definitely likes its Presidents to be good looking.

I was excited to hear our President-elect talking about closing the terrorist prison camp at Guantanamo.  To me, that's one of the most visible, embarrassing moves that has hurt our status in the world.  You either kill 'em on the battlefield or they're POWs.  You don't get to claim to be a democracy that values due process and then setup some Mickey Mouse prison camp and court outside the US so you can hold people indefinitely.  It's ridiculous.  There are also a few other things Obama can do just by rescinding some of W's executive orders, like making sure we REALLY don't torture people and we don't drill for oil in protected lands.  He's reviewing those as well.  

I'm off to Des Moines again this week and I can honestly say I'm more optimistic about America's future knowing that Obama will take office in January.  I don't expect any miracles.  He'll make mistakes, and probably some big ones.  I know he can't fix the economy, or healthcare, or our status in the world in one fell swoop, but if he just makes some good progress on each of those fronts, I'll feel like my vote was well cast.  I saw a bumper sticker that says "Regime change starts at home."  Damn right it does.