We Need An Inauguration...

Right This Very Minute

I’ve never seen anything like it. It has similarities to Kennedy and Reagan, but bigger. It’s more like Lincoln or Roosevelt. A great deal of it has to do with Obama but not all of it. A great deal of it had to do with Lincoln and Roosevelt but not all of it. Those times, like these, were times of great peril and fear and Americans yearned for hope and unity. Lincoln and Roosevelt, and as of tomorrow, this new, young, black and white, African and American, liberal, orator from Lincoln’s Land and the Windy City will inaugurate a new, challenging, exciting era in American life.

I have been hearing from a lot of my conservative friends that they think the build up to the inauguration is too much, like a coronation. John McCain could never have inspired this much fervor and, to the conservative critics, the liberal media would never have sat still for it. There are a lot of reasons for the energy and fervor about the Obama inauguration. Here’s a few...

1. I am reminded of the Christmas carol, "We Need A Little Christmas–Right This Very Minute." An inauguration is a solemn ceremony that launches the beginning of something new. America has been through a grueling eight years and no one wants it to be over more than President George Bush. Departing office with a 22 % approval rating and with 83% of the America people ready to give Obama a whirl, 35% more than voted for him, we need an inauguration–right this very minute.
The inauguration is one of our few national liturgies. And it is the people’s event, the country’s event. It is by definition, and with all the symbols, substance and nuances of the event, a national liturgy of unity. It brings both parties, all branches, administration past (s) and future, and Americans from everywhere gathered in the mall and at flat screens and tubes the world over.

2. I’ve never been one to obsess over what the rest of the world thinks of us. America has always ruffled feather abroad. The wanton and reckless approach the Bush Administration took to playing the world sandbox has damaged our reputation. The Iraq war was a mistake (am I the last person to admit this?), and Don Imus was right–Dick Cheney is a war criminal.

3. The Bush Administration has not only damaged our reputation abroad. They were neither compassionate nor conservative. Bush never met a spending bill he wouldn’t sign and, in their dealings with the Republican congress (to say nothing of Democrats), he and Cheney both disregarded and demeaned the legislative branch. The legislative branch’s cup raneth over as well with congressional failures and incompetence. For eight years, damn few Republicans ever criticized them. That no Republican, save Ron Paul, who ran for President was willing to reject, denounce or distance himself from Bush-Cheney sealed the fate that it was time for a Democrat. I am not sorry Obama won. I thank God he beat Hillary Clinton in the primary. Whatever your misgivings about Obama, we are far better off with him than her.

4. I am moved by what Obama’s election has meant to African Americans. From what I read to what I see and, mostly, from what I hear from African Americans I know, the meaning of this momentous occasion to them is awesome.

The streets and railroad tracks and all of Washington, indeed that "D.C. has come to Washington," is about generational shift, our first African and American President, a host of other reasons to be sure–but mostly, I think, its about this pivotal moment that our country shifts, for the better I pray, and our national yearning to be inaugurated–right this very minute–to a new morning in America.

God bless America!