President Obama..

Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it??

While I wasn't alive when President Kennedy was sworn in, I did grow up in one of those 60's Catholic households that idolized Pope John XXIII, JFK, RFK, MLK and Gandhi. For the African-American community, this is just as big a moment in time, a nexus where everything changes.

Like Kennedy, Obama hasn't just brought along his core cultural groups, but has seized the imagination of the young and the hip. The inaugural speech was good: a call to arms, in the sense of trying to mobilize the national imagination and promulgate a common vision, direction and purpose for the country, tempered by realism, and the extending of an olive branch to those who might be our adversaries. I wouldn't underestimate the goodwill Obama will have from the rest of the world, just from not being George Bush or a neocon oriented Republican, and he won't squander it.

For the first time, in a long time, since the 1st George Bush, in fact, there are true adults in the White House. It goes without saying that these guys are smart, too. It bodes well. I feel some measure of hope, and think this country is back on the road to greatness. Truly.