I Don’t Envy Him

I know some people out there like George W. Bush. After all a person doesn’t get elected twice to the presidency without a few supporters. I suppose it is possible to like just about anyone if you agree with their policies and moral worldview. I liked Bill Clinton’s laws a lot more than defending his taste in women.

Like him, love him or hate him you cannot deny he left us a grand old mess. The stats today are terrifying. Whether the Iraqi war was right or wrong is a question for a different day. What cannot be disputed is that the war is not cheap. The coffers are bare because that is where the money went. That’s where the money’s going for a generation.

At home unemployment has crept up. I’ve read that one in six people is behind on their mortgage right now. Three companies near me have fallen into bankruptcy in the last few months. Their windows are an ugly reminder of just what other dominoes could so easily fall. Houses around here are worth about 100K less than they were in October of 2007.

Eight years of Bush have let the air out of my personal patriotism tires just a bit. The cynicism has crept into my bones and settled there. I want to salute the flag and wipe a tear from my eye when I hear the Star Spangled Banner. I want to desperately believe in the America I was taught to admire in seventh grade social studies class.

But then I think of people who redefined patriotism as something belonging solely to those who would vote against gay marriage amendments or for creationism in public schools.

Then I cringe.

Obama wasn’t my first choice. He wasn’t my second choice. He wasn’t even my third choice. I wanted Edwards. I wanted a man who cheated on his wife while she was in the middle of breast cancer treatment. Then I wanted Hillary so I could tell my daughter that the glass ceiling had not been merely touched but shattered.

What I got was someone who ran the best political campaign in half a century. He ran hard and he ran smart. Most of all he finally ran to win.

Election day is about held breath and (if you’re lucky) cheering like mad.

Inauguration day is about what you do when the race is over, the diploma earned, the honeymoon finished, the day after birth. The real triumph begins when you don’t just put the medals in your draw or the diploma on the wall. The real victory begins when you demonstrate you were paying attention along the way.

I have no idea if Obama will be another FDR or merely Jimmy Carter redux. But I sit here holding my breath on this historic day. This man with the funny name and the win I never expected made me cry. I expect he will again. This man who is half Chicago political machine and half the very finest of American Dreams. I listened to his acceptance speech the day he won the election and I bawled long and loudly.

So today begins the day some of us have waited for for a very long time. My cynic still buried under eight years of Bush thinks this can’t possibly matter. The part of me that sat there on the couch two months ago openly weeping thinks nothing could possibly matter more.

My personal prayers tend to be in the Hebrew my grandmother knew or said softly to myself before I go to bed. But I will make this one public.

Strip the layer of cynicism from our hearts, Mr. Obama. Make the America we were promised real again. Give us the place we saw during your election, the one that made us think of the part of the constitution that really does make seventh graders go wide with awe.

We’ll be waiting and watching. Most of all, for the first time in a very long time, we’ll be filled with hope.