Last night, as we watched the crowd at Grant Park cheering for President-elect Obama, I turned to Justin and said, "This is something we're going to tell our kids about."
My heart was filled with happiness for my country. For here indeed in America, anything can happen. In November 2008, the son of a Kenyan father and a white Kansan mother rose to the highest office our nation has to offer. What a beautiful representation of the American Dream.
Will Barack Obama be a great president? A mediocre one? A terrible one? Only history can tell. There have been presidents, like John Adams, who entered the presidency with an impressive resume and a shrewd intellect but who left the White House with a tarnished reputation and with the country a little worse for the wear. There have been presidents, like Franklin D. Roosevelt, who inherited a nation on the brink of destruction, yet who found a way to stitch our country back together, piece by little piece. And there have been countless presidents, like Millard Fillmore and James Garfield and Warren Harding, who entered and left the presidency without leaving a clear legacy behind---forgotten by the annals of history. Where will Obama stand in the mix? You know, I have no idea.
I can only say this: I look to the next four years with hope and cynicism, with idealism and a critical eye.
But today, I am filled only with pride.
