Like you all, I am sure, I would like to celebrate today as a day to 'exhale'. We made it folks!
I thought it instructive that our new president included his exhortation to "put away childish things", those things that have led us down the path to fiscal dispair. Obama's focus on service towards others, and his praise of those who do and those who make over those who, I don't know, make a living speculating on misery, is a welcome change over our outgoing Toddler in Chief.
In case you missed it, Obama's first official act was to issue a proclamation that yesterday be a "National day of renewal and reconciliation"
NATIONAL DAY OF RENEWAL AND RECONCILIATION, 2009
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BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION
As I take the sacred oath of the highest office in the land, I am humbled by the responsibility placed upon my shoulders, renewed by the courage and decency of the American people, and fortified by my faith in an awesome God.
We are in the midst of a season of trial. Our Nation is being tested, and our people know great uncertainty. Yet the story of America is one of renewal in the face of adversity, reconciliation in a time of discord, and we know that there is a purpose for everything under heaven.
On this Inauguration Day, we are reminded that we are heirs to over two centuries of American democracy, and that this legacy is not simply a birthright -- it is a glorious burden. Now it falls to us to come together as a people to carry it forward once more.
So in the words of President Abraham Lincoln, let us remember that: "The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 20, 2009, a National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation, and call upon all of our citizens to serve one another and the common purpose of remaking this Nation for our new century.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twentieth day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.
Let's take a moment to be thankful that we now have a leader who believes that we can do more for our country than to just 'go out and shop' in the face of imminent crisis.
Let's not kid ourselves, however, that any of what is to come, and what must be done, will occur without a fight. While those on the other side of the isle may be going the way of the dinosaur, absent an evolutionary change (funny being that they don't believe in evolution), they will not go quietly into that good night.
and to quote another passage from his address:
What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long, no longer apply.
The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.
Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end.