Inauguration: A New Thanksgiving

Today, when President in-effect Obama is sworn in as the 44th president of the United States of America, we will have much for which we should be thankful and much for which we might hope.

First, let’s give thanks that the mere election of Barrack Hussein Obama II seems to be almost enough to wipe the tarnish off our nation’s image as seen by the countries whom we number as our friends and allies. Next, we should hope for a speedy withdrawal from Iraq. We must hope our new president keeps his promise to abide by the Geneva Conventions with regard to prisoners of war—two measures that could boost our image even among critics, skeptics and would-be enemies.

Let’s give thanks for the recent upswelling of Europeans who are re-examining prejudices against what Salman Rushdie calls in The Satanic Verses ‘black people’—by which he means all non-Caucasians.

Let’s give thanks for those wealthy people and nations around the world who still look at the United States as a safe haven for their money. Ironically, our housing-market plummet is taking the rest of the world’s economies down with our own. Nevertheless, China, India, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and investors from those countries keep buying U.S. Treasury debt. So we can still hope we will have a last chance to borrow and spend our way out of depression.

Let’s give thanks to voters in the United States who decided there is an advantage to being led by a guy who graduated with high honors (magna cum laude), instead of a guy who ranked unashamedly near the bottom of his class. We can hope for a president who is intelligent instead of “decisive” and who follows where universal evidence leads, rather than a president intent on forcing the country to follow his personal faith.

Let’s give thanks to Republican voters who chose to put forth John McCain as their candidate for president. Of the Republican hopefuls, McCain was, in spite of his own campaign’s appearances to the contrary (e.g. Sarah Palin), the most centrist, most reasonable, most pragmatic candidate—the one most likely to ‘reach across the aisle’ to find solutions. Let’s hope this is a sign that a majority of Republican voters are ready to move toward the center. Perhaps we can dare to hope the whole country is ready to re-embrace the Constitutionally guaranteed principle of maintaining separation of church and state—an ideal to be preserved, rather than an obstacle to be overcome.

I’m so overcome with gratitude and hope, I can hardly wait for 10 a.m. (Mountain Standard Time), January 20, 2009.

Copyright by Todd Lederman 2009