A NEW DAWN

It's hard at this point to write something that hasn't already been written, express a thought or emotion that hasn't been more eloquently stated by scores of others. Suffice to say that with Barack Obama's win this past Tuesday night the world was forever changed for the better.

In the two days since this magnificently historical event global ebullience is still high. We seem to collectively understand the implications of a man of color rising to fill the top job in America. As a country founded on principle rather than persuasion, we have only recently attempted to truly manifest the potent words of our Declaration of Independence, "All men are created equal." On Tuesday night we finally realized this prophesy.

President-Elect Obama's win was both a valediction to a terrible, terrible period in our history and a coming-out party for one that at long last gives depth of meaning to another famous phrase from the Declaration, "We, the people."

As of Tuesday night a black child could also dream of becoming President, a privilege formerly reserved only for white boys. And thanks to the spirited campaign of Senator Hillary Clinton, now girls, both black and white, can share this lofty reverie.

Internationally, we've pulled ourselves up from the depths to which the Bush administration had sunk us. Whereas we were just recently perceived as callow bullies, insensitive to the global brotherhood the European Union has begun to build, our tarnished image has now been shined as we put our fears and prejudices aside to do the right thing.

In electing Barack Hussein Obama as President of these United States we didn't elect a black man or a man of mixed heritage or a man with a different name or a man whose father was born in Kenya. In electing Senator Obama we chose the best man for the job, because of and in spite of all of these things. It's not so amazing that we picked a black man to be our next President. What is amazing is that we picked the right man to be our next President, and he just so happens to be black. That is true equality.

God Bless America and God Bless our 44th President, Barack Hussein Obama.