Proud of America but still not hopeful

I join with others in celebrating what America has accomplished in electing its first black president. Living and working in a mixed area, I'm genuinely happy for my black friends and clients, because of THEIR tears -- which are real tears of joy this morning. That part has nothing to do with ideology. This day was hundreds of years in coming. I'm flying the flag today for that reason.

The reason I said the lamps are going out is that you need a hazmat suit to touch his rolodex. He could transcend all of that and be a good president, but I'll have to see evidence of that before I believe it. He was a winsome candidate who had a great organization, and his vote margin exceeded the fraud margin, so there's no questioning the outcome. I'm not going to argue that Bush's presidency was successful; except for preventing a domestic terror attack for seven years and a few other things, he didn't really deliver "peace and prosperity." But after decades fighting the cold war, the answer to these problems is not "progressive" economics and foreign policy. Sorry.

I'd be happy to be proven wrong. Sometimes a president is trusted if he runs against type, as when Nixon went to China or Clinton reformed welfare. The country wouldn't have trusted their opponents to do the job because we would suspect bad faith. Obama is no dummy; he could put it all together. But that would be based on "hope" and not evidence.