Great Expectations

As this issue of Talk Magazine hits the stands, today marks a truly historical day in American history. Millions of people will have tuned in their televisions, and countless folks will have made a trek to Washington DC as Barack Obama is sworn in as the new President of the United States. And while having our first African American president is quite historical, the real item of relevance is not the swearing in of President Obama, but instead the end of quite possibly the worst presidency in American history, that of now private citizen George Bush.

Now there are those around, many from Indian Wells, who would argue that George Bush wasn’t a bad president. There are even those who would say he was a great president. Now that he is out of office officially I can let those with that kind of a mentality on a very badly kept secret. George Bush was not, I repeat was not, in any capacity a person whose presidency should ever be looked back upon as anything more than a very dark period in the history world. From the travesty of Hurricane Katrina, to the outing of a CIA Agent, lying to the world to get us into war, and to the recent economic crisis, George Bush and his cronies (including those who ever voted for him) are completely responsible for the state of our country today.

In case there is anyone out there that thinks I don’t have a definite opinion on the now former president and the deeds of his administration, I hope that I have cleared it up for you. I know, I know, there are those on the right who now will say “He is gone now, so you can’t blame him”. Well of course I can blame him and I will. Hell, the Bush regime was blaming the Clinton’s for their failures throughout. We went from a surplus economy with Bill Clinton, to the biggest national debt in the history of our country. We went from being the darling of the world following 911 to warmongers. Sorry, Mr. Bush, that was your doing and you and your party will own it for history.

But now we have a new dawn filled with great expectations and high hopes. With President Obama at the helm, we can at least know from the beginning that we have someone in office who truly cares about the American people. The people of America elected Obama in great numbers, and for the first time in years we have a president in office whose election to office is completely legitimate and without doubt of fraud. That in itself is a sign of a change in America, where the voice of the people is actually being heard and not decided by the Supreme Court.

The truth of the matter is that there are tough days ahead, even with President Obama in charge. There are those who say that perhaps we should lower our expectations of what we can see from the new administration. That notion I must reject. This is America after all and not only should we expect great things, we should work together to make them happen. Tough times in the past have lead to America’s ingenuity. We have banded together and literally changed the world. There is nothing that says we cannot make this happen, and those who wish for the President to fail at reviving America, then you are the problem and your patriotism is flawed.

Now is the time for America to prosper and thrive. We simply cannot let pundants say that we are in a recession, and times are bad and accept it. As with any situation, we are in control of our destiny. We can either accept the news of doom and gloom or we can make strides to change it.

Charles Dickens wrote something that is very appropriate in our current times. He wrote: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way."

It’s all how you look at it, but with Obama in office, I look at it with the audacity of hope.