Salvation...

Salvation...

I've been pondering a post-election post. After so many months I find it hard to believe that it is over and that my vote actually counted. (I am, after all, a blue guy in a red state.)

A friend told me about an email he got from a European friend asking him if we had elected the Messiah.

That got me thinking about the irony of all this.

Four years ago at this time I was walking around in a daze. I couldn't understand how W was re-elected. I wondered if I was in the wrong country. My daughter put a new message on our answering machine: "We can't come to the phone. We're so upset with the election that we've moved to Canada."

Could we survive another four years of W?

Why didn't everyone else see through him?

That was before Katrina.

Katrina was the first breach in W's popularity. I was in Toronto through the hurricane and I remember watching news reports where I heard reporters question and criticize W. It was the first time.

Fast forward through a prolonged wars in Iraq and Afganistan, ongoing torture and secret prisons, Guantanamo, illegal wire taps, a financial melt down unlike anything we've seen at least since the 1930s, and a whole lot more...

And it looks like the American people have finally had enough.

And when they hear a man talk about hope, and about working together they get excited.

It is as if things had to get worse before we woke up and realized that something was horribly, dreadfully wrong.

I love the irony that in our hour of crisis we - arguably the most racist nation on the planet - have elected black man to lead us out of this mess.

Can one man make a difference? Or do we expect him to walk on water?

We know that a team of cynical power brokers led by the likes of Rove and Cheney can make a difference for the worse. Can hope and hard work overcome the damage they've done?

Ben offered a link to a funny video (didn't know Obama did stand up, did you?) with a serious platform for change. I want to cut him slack and at the same time hold him accountable for keeping his promises. So lets keep track of how he does.

NPR had an interesting story about a documentary available on youtube comparing Obama's black masculinity to the rapper 50 Cent. Obama's is cerebral where 50 Cent's is very physical. He goes on to argue that W aligns himself much more with 50 Cent. Very interesting. The video is short. Watch it.