A New Hope (Celebrate Like the End of Return of the Jedi)

Today at noon marks a new beginning. Gone is arguably the worst presidency in our history, a time sandwiched between the worst attack on our soil and one of the worst financial collapses we have ever faced. The amount of rotten, stinking, maggot infested meat in the middle is staggering: lies, deceit, the War in Iraq, the mishandling of Katrina (good job Brownie!), Darth Cheney, the Patriot Act, Guantanamo, and so on. The list seems endless.

Obama has yet to step one official foot in office, but with him comes a new hope. Gone are the crummy prequels and now begins the true trilogy. Obama is not Luke Skywalker. He is not an all powerful Jedi who can wield tremendous power, but he is a true leader. He is a guy who seems to get it and will actually work to make good, real changes happen. He is not the Messiah. He is not a face on a commemorative plate to pray to before hogging on meat and mashed potatoes, but he is an elected official whom we can be proud of. We are the world's fart joke no longer.

He will make mistakes. He will have his Bay of Pigs, but he will be honest with us. He will speak to us as equals and not as a trumped up king reciting PR rubbish from an ivory tower. He will treat us as fellow citizens and not cows to throw money at in order to bump up approval ratings. Hopefully gone are the days of Hummers garnished with yellow ribbons, but it will take time. People poor today will still be poor tomorrow. People losing their homes today will still be losing their homes tomorrow. People searching for jobs today will still be searching for jobs tomorrow. We must be patient and we must be willing to work.

These are my hopes for our 44th president. He has a lot of work to do in order to turn around the mistakes of the past administration and our partisan cynicism, and he cannot do it alone. We cannot expect him too. This truly is a historic time, and we are a part of it. Now we must figure out what we're going to do with it. Will we help create real positive change or let our apathy continue to control us? Will our generation be celebrated or blasted in high school history classes 20, 50, and 100 years from now?

I'm excited to see what Obama is capable of. I hope he makes cynics of government like me reconsider our libertarian stances. If he can live up to half of the hype that he has generated we can expect great things. Hopefully the Dark Ages are over and America is on the cusp of a Renaissance.