Is it anticipation of a new strategy in Afghanistan? Hopefulness about
an exit strategy for Iraq, where John McCain joked we could be, with
his approval, "for a hundred years"?
Is it excitement that America will have a leader who has vowed to shut
down our illegal impoundment center at Guantanamo Bay where, finally,
the Bush administration has admitted this week prisoners were tortured?
Is it relief that rather than a fox guarding the country fiscal
henhouse we'll get a reformer? And rather than the cronies of Big Oil
and industry guarding the environmental health of the nation, we'll get
a true steward?
This writer has been in Vermont since Reagan was president and has
never seen a community potluck gathering on the night of the
inauguration to celebrate change and possibility.
Nor has this writer (covering local schools since students wrote on
stone tablets) seen schools project an inauguration, assembly-style, on
gymnasium and classroom walls for children, teachers, parents and
community members to watch together.
But the phenomenon is not just here. These types of community
celebrations are taking place all over the country in schools,
community centers, theaters and in private homes.
This event is significant well beyond the color of Barack Obama's skin.
The man represents a shift in American dynastic politics and has
captured the hopes and inspired the nation in a way that no president
has in decades.
-LAL
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