Final Thoughts

From there the afternoon became a flurry of phone calls and text messages, of conversations and observations, of good spirits and laughs. And, eventually, a celebratory cocktail.

I've never been big on parades, not even on an occasion such as this, and so it came as no surprise to me when my attention span was exceeded. I was in the car and on the way home when the news broke about Ted Kennedy. That it appears now to have been a false alarm prevents an ugly stain from being forever attached the day's events. Still, at the time it was a jolt, an unpleasant reminder that real life does go on.

We are almost two weeks removed from Inauguration Day as of this writing, and over that time I have come to realize that putting my thoughts about Barack Obama and the beginning of his administration down on paper was a much more difficult task than I ever believed it would be. I struggled with why that was, with why the end result I had advocated, hoped and voted for didn't inspire me more thoroughly than it has. And what I eventually realized was this:

What had the greatest impact on me that day was not the speeches or the pageantry or the crowds or the euphoria that seemed to grip almost this entire nation. What struck me most, and what has stayed with me most clearly, is the retreat from Washington in disgrace of George W. Bush. It is not the image of Barack Obama taking the oath of office but rather of the long, slow helicopter ride over and across the Mall, of the dramatic pause above the Jefferson Memorial, and of the final departure from Andrews Air Force Base. It was then that I understood that Bush was simply going to return to Texas and to the same cushy and pampered life he had led for 54 years before coming to power—and that it is the rest of us (not just Obama) who are tasked to clean up the mess he has left behind.

Some have said that electing Obama was the easy part, but it seems now that getting rid of Bush was pretty easy, too—even if it did take us eight years to do it. It is now when the real work begins, and in fact already had begun before the celebration was even complete.

Where will we be four years from now? No one can know for sure...but I, for one, do honestly believe we as a nation will be better off than we are today.

God help us all if I'm wrong.