Proud to be an American

It's hard for me to articulate the change that has washed over me in light of the elections, results and historic speech Barack Obama made last evening. The contrast between Obama and Bush at least from the surface level is so striking that it's incredible that they will share the same title.

The word that comes to mind immediately is humility. Obama was humble in his gracious message to Senator McCain. He humbly recognized the fact that Americans - rather than he - made this change. He’s rooted in the sense that he is a part of the process rather than the engine behind the process.

Obviously a leader must have a certain amount of confidence in his abilities. He wouldn’t have made it past the first primary if he weren’t aware of his leadership capabilities. That being said, he seems to genuinely want to be a part of history – not the highlight of history.

His ideas are radical at times, his policies foreign to some, but his temperament hasn’t wavered and his campaign was never derailed.

Another word describing tonight would obviously be emotion - for good reason. In the course of 48 hours Obama went through a huge personal emotional experience in the passing of his grandmother and through the biggest public emotional experience in winning the presidency of the U.S. And think what you want of Jesse Jackson and Oprah, but 20 years ago they couldn’t have dreamed of this moment in American history.

Barack Obama has been given the opportunity to become one of the best presidents in history. He inherits all kinds of problems and claims to have solutions. He has a great deal of support from his liberal base and the benefit-of–the-doubt from independents and even some conservatives.

What will he do? How will he perform? Will he come through on his promises?

I don’t know.

But I will support President Obama in prayer. I will honor him as our president.

I will even be proud to live in a flawed – but suddenly more united – United States of America.