A Day of Change

Stepping back from weather today...

The title of this post was the headline in today's paper here locally. Obviously anyone not living under a rock knows why, though the definition of "change" has been very generic if not totally unclear as far as where the nation is headed. But that part aside, one element of change is very evident today, and should be celebrated. We just inuagurated the first black man as the President of the United States (okay so he isn't 100% black but you get the idea). As I said to folks the day after the election, that is a very remarkable thing, which was thought of as impossible not too long ago. This is a very important moment symbolically for the nation, and hopefully will go a long way in helping to further ease racial tensions, though I realize only an extreme idealist would ever expect those issues to totally go away.

I'm a conservative, and did not support Obama, but on this day, regardless of where your beliefs lie, we should all be willing to put aside differences for a day and applaud our nation for coming this far. There will be time for criticism, if warranted, as Obama's four years unfold, but at least for today, partisanship should be put on hold.

What will the future hold? Who knows. But count me in with conservatives who, while not agreeing with Obama's point of view on many issues, still wish to see him and our nation succeed. As bad as things are now, we simply cannot afford more failures in the next four years, and wishing for this solely to have a reason to throw him out of office in 2012 doesn't make a lot of sense to me. And this goes for those who genuinely wanted to see Bush fail (there were plenty in this group). It is definitely the start of a new era... a new chapter for the United States. How will this new chapter be written? Stay tuned the next four years and we'll all find out!