From TPM Reader ES …
I’m 18 years old. I haven’t seen many presidents. I barely remember the Clinton years–Bush has been president since I was 10. Starting Tuesday, the government will finally represent me and, to a certain extent, the things I believe in. I still can’t believe that change is really coming.
From TPM Reader RM …
I’m a 48-year old white man, born and raised in Florida. Before I was born my parents became involved in the Civil Rights Movement. When I was a child we attended a mostly black Methodist church in Miami, the Church of the Open Door. The church was led by an extraordinary preacher, Doctor Curtis McDowell, a very light-skinned black man, a native of North Carolina, who had spent many years as a missionary in Angola.
Dr. McDowell was, like Dr. King, a passionate advocate for social justice. Like Barack Obama, Dr. McDowell was captivated by the fierce urgency of now. And like Barack Obama, he had the capacity to take people as he found them, to love what was good in the most backward thinking racists, and to disarm hate with humor and Christian fellowship.
In the darkest days, like after King’s and Bobby Kennedy’s assasinations, Dr. McDowell, who had seen many horrors in his life, would say, “take heart, this too shall pass.” I’ve never had more occasion to repeat that sage wisdom to myself than over the last eight years.
Actually, I’ve been waiting all my conscious life for a president who lived up to the passionate commitments and outstanding character of my biggest childhood role models–my parents and Dr. Curtis McDowell. Barack Obama is that president. His inauguration fills me with great hope for and great pride in my country. We’re finding our way.
From TPM Reader CV …
In the past, I wouldn’t have classified myself as anything even close to resembling an “informed voter” and as a result, cast two votes for George Bush. Now being rather ashamed of those decisions, but more importantly, furious at what the last administration did with those votes, I vowed to change. This cycle, I kept as informed as one could and proudly cast my vote for Barack. It was as though the guilt of the past eight years was lifted. Despite everything that is happening in the world and in my own life, I am extremely excited about the future. I feel that we, as a nation, have the best man for the job at the helm. Good luck, President Obama. I’m proud to be standing with you.
From TPM Reader DR …
I’ve been deliberately cultivating detachment from the Obama brouhaha (and have all along), partly because of my dashed hopes from the early promise of and ultimate deep disappointment in Bill Clinton. (You ain’t gonna suck ME in again, you foolish hopes for a transformative politician! not again!)
But I was watching the NewsHour tonight, a panel discussion with Rev. Joseph Lowery, the graying and regal Charlayne Hunter-Gault (who I had watched making her on-air debut as a nervous neophyte on PBS), and Gwen Ifill, and as they talked about the phenomenon of President Obama, I just started to cry tears of relief and (God help me) hope for this country.
Listen, my mother used to tell stories of segregated WWII-era Washington, DC, where she came to work for the war effort. In her boarding house, the ‘help’ was black, the boarders were white, and the ‘help’ lived in a ‘black’ part of town. I grew up in a border
state in the fifties, where it was “N** this” and “N**” that. I remember when Kennedy integrated the federal Civil Service, and the bitter joke among white civil servants of my acquaintance was, “Work with ‘great viggah’ or be replaced by a ______.” (I’m sure you can fill in the blank.)Hell, I didn’t even think Obama would make it; I thought he’d be cut down, like Dr. King. Now, though, I’ll leave a little room for hope. Hope that a country that could do such a big thing, after all this time, as elect a black man president, can maybe do the other big
things we’re all being called upon to do, to repair the heartbreaking devastation of the Bush years.
From TPM Reader JF …
Well, here’s one pre-inauguration take.
It’s all about hope, on a lot of different levels. I’m a policy wonk, and one of my deepest hopes is that Obama will be able to get Americans to believe again in the basic project of American government — the idea that competent public servants, pursuing progressive policies, can actually advance the common good and make all of our lives better. It’s such a momentous moment: for the first time, a Democratic president has a _progressive_ Democratic majority in Congress (as opposed to a posse of Dems interlaced with Southern ex-Segregationists, which was unfortunately the best we could do over the past half century). It’s an unprecedented, once-in-a-lifetime, maybe once-in-a-century opportunity to make good policy so that Americans can _see_ the change, and believe in it.
I see in Barack Obama all the best that America has to offer. I trust him more than I would trust anyone to nimbly navigate the daunting political and policy challenges ahead. It’s not just that he is a brilliantly competent political thinker and leader. His is the particular kind of brilliance that involves a lot of listening and questioning — a flexible kind of brilliance that requires humility as well as confidence. Obama the law professor, the community organizer, the son of a Kenyan as well as a Kansan, is exactly what America and the world need right now. The question is whether even he will be able to dig us out of the mess we’re in, and do it quickly enough and forcefully enough that people start to believe in the progressive project once again.
I’m reading over various inauguration day curtain-raisers. And I like this one by Bart Gellman in the Post.
Dick Cheney pulls a muscle in his back while shredding docs moving boxes and will attend the inauguration in a wheelchair. That and the day’s other inauguration news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
A few of you have asked, what’s with those “Your Take” posts? Where are they from. We’re inviting TPM Readers to share with us and our readers, what this inauguration means to you. Here are the instructions.
TPM Reader JR:
Just want to help your site get a better picture of what it is like to
be in dc right now. I’ve been in a ticketholder “line” since 4 am and
have moved four feet. For all the wonder an merriment of this
occasion, this is mass chaos and needed to be better planned for. Just
hoping to take it in like the millions on tv.