Mr. President
For the 44th time in the history of our Republic, a sacred oath has been taken and history steps forward.
I have not been a supporter of President Obama but today is a day on which he is to be congratulated and welcomed as the new chief executive and commander-in-chief. His supporters will celebrate, as they well should as it is their time. Hopefully, in tackling the many problems the nation faces, the President will opt for the long view rather than the expedient one. Hopefully, the Republican leadership will use their position as the opposition party wisely in a way that limits the worst excesses of one party government to the benefit of our nation.
Good luck Mr. President, you will need it.
UPDATE:
In office for two hours, the new administration has begun blogging ( Hat tip Dr. Jay Rosen):
Change has come to WhiteHouse.gov
Welcome to the new WhiteHouse.gov. I’m Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media for the White House and one of the people who will be contributing to the blog.
January 20th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Good luck to him.
.
I need the mental discipline to detach the man, who seems smart and well-intentioned and civil, from a large number of his supporters who are none of the above.
January 21st, 2009 at 2:27 am
Yes, I think managing the crazies is going to prove to be a challenge for Obama and a major reason he picked Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff. His position in the House Democratic leadership gave him knowledge of every Democratic member with an achilles heel or political vulnerability in case they had to be defended to nth degree or thrown premptively under the bus. Emanuel was known to squeeze ppl hard just for votes
The wingnuts are already howling for the heads of Cheney and Bush, oblivious to the fact that the GOP and conservatives would go absolutely nuclear and stay that way for the next four years. Everything legislative would slow to a crawl and a large swath of independents would react very negatively to what everyone to the right of DailyKOS would see as partisan revenge. Imagine how that would change the prospects for 2010 in an instant
January 21st, 2009 at 3:58 am
Zen,
I hope you are right. As far as the Senate goes, plucking HRC from her likely pain in the butt perch there would seem to leave him with managing the antics of Reid and the few liberal Democratic senators who seem to have energy or delusions in anything (Leahy, Brown). Schumer cares only about money and can be bought with a few extra fundraisers. Webb and the other Blue Dogs will be reasonable and intent on their fiefdoms (health care, jobs training, etc).
Lex,
The near-fanatical devotion some are approaching him with can only give one pause. Let’s hope a few more moves to the center dulls at least half of that crowd.
I can at least understand some of the emotion (especially the pride and joy of the elderly) of those whose youthful dreams were deferred in a less promising era.