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I guess when it really hit home was watching the Obamas dancing at one of the many Inaugural Balls, as the orchestra played the strains of "What a Difference a Day Makes", I think Beyonce was singing. That was the moment when I really got choked up, realizing that the long nightmare was truly over.....
Nor have I been disappointed since, with our new President signing orders to close Guantanamo within a year, put an end to torture (under the fake euphemism of' "enhanced interrogation"), prevent incoming staff from entering the revolving door of lobbying for at least two years after government service, while most of his Cabinet choices have already been approved, including Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.
There is little point to re-hashing the past eight year nightmare, but there is one point I need to make; the outgoing President, George W. Bush, pardoned fewer people than any other president in recent history. Up until W.'s failure to temper justice (or, in some cases, injustice) with mercy, his father, George H.W. Bush, held that unenviable record for minimal pardons. And those whom W. did pardon were mostly low-level drug dealers,a counterfeiter, and transporters of illegal immigrants into the United States. W avoided high-profile "evildoers" where there might be some later embarrassment.
So much for the "compassionate conservatism" he promised when running for the higherst office in the land in 2000. It was all a sham, a charade, and the only national election W. won in 2000 was a five-to-four vote on the Supreme
Court, a court whose majority had been handpicked by W.'s Republican predecessors. How's that for political incest?
But, all things pass, and the past eight years will recede into history as W. recedes into his new Texas home, probably to have memoirs ghost-written which he would not take the time to read were they not about him. Meanwhile, the world, and America, move on into a new era, one which undoubtedly will have its disappointments, but also its triumphs of the human and humane spirit. Perhaps our martyred senator Robert Kennedy, who would have made a great president had he lived, said it best: Some people see things as they are, and ask Why? I see things they could be, and ask, Why not? As does Obama, also.
Yes, we can -- and yes, we did,
Eugene Elander
