Somehow this whole New President thing is finally sinking in.

Today, Barack Obama gets sworn into office.

AWESOME!

Sorry, but I had to pause there for a Moment of Awesome! I’ve been mulling it over with the inauguration on the horizon [literally, CNN has the camera pointed there] and listening to the hullabaloo surrounding it. We’re seeing something strange with the anticipation of Obama. The republicans aren’t all up in arms about it like they normally would be. They’re waiting patiently. And why? Why am I so damn excited today? Why does today feel like it’s the first real day [with cautious optimism] that I’ll feel proud to work towards building a better America?

Because Bush is gone.

I’m serious. That’s the answer here. If McCain were up there getting sworn in, we would see the same silent patience from the democrats. Silently hoping and waiting for things to get better because we all want it to get better. It can’t get much worse.

These last eight years have been what the late and great Wesley Willis would accurately refer to as “a demon hellride”. The exuberance, the cheering, the fanaticism surrounding all of it is indicative of the hope that we just might finally have beaten this awful cancer called George W. Bush. I am confident that he will no doubt go down in history as the worst U.S. President of all time, but what’s really shitty about all of it is that America did it twice. It’s been eight years. Eight years of holding our breath, walking on eggshells, closing our doors and waiting for the whole shit-storm to blow over. In fact, I think ol’ dubya said it best here:

Finally after another four years of suffering we’ve paid our dues for our foolishness. Shame on us. For the last four years we’ve all sat in the corner knowing we didn’t do good enough to turn things around. It’s been harder than any of us could have imagined. In fact, it’s been so long, and so tough that it’s hard to even get a grip on the proper perspective we should have. The whole country has been under a spell due to the sheer amount of underhanded policy and completely irresponsible bullshit that’s been going on, and now we’re desensitized to it. It’s taken me this long to finally get back to a reasonable point that I can start to think about my native country in even the slightest slice of positive light.

I’ve never known an election or political process that seemed fair or just. I’ve never felt hope and optimism for our nation’s future. Perhaps I [and the whole country] have been beaten down so bad that now even the tiniest scrap of a promising future seems like an immaculate miracle feast.

At least it’s a start… and for that I am thankful.