Media Circus Aside...

Well, I'm not 100% on the Obama bandwagon... I'm not going to make this blog political in any way, and I'm totally reserving judgment until we see some of what the new President accomplishes or doesn't... so for that reason I haven't been tuning in to the media coverage of today. I don't want my frustrations over the media's obnoxious tendency to slather everything on nauseatingly thickly to jaundice my views of this administration before the sun sets on its first day. BUT, the political scientist in me couldn't stay entirely away... so I read the text of President Obama's Inaugural Address and found it to be one of the most poignant presidential speeches I've read in YEARS. I found so much profound hope and dignified pride in the words his writers crafted for his delivery, that I had to share one of my favorite quotes:

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new.
But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage
and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things
are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress
throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What
is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the
part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the
world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in
the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of
our character, than giving our all to a difficult task. - President Obama,
January 20, 2009

Wow. I just hope people listen... I hope we aren't a lost cause. I hope my children grow up in a solid America.