Today, January 20th, 2009, Barack Obama was sworn in as President of the United States of America. Although I did not vote for Mr. Obama, he is my president and the American Flag is flying outside my home today. My three year old son, who can identify and pronounce all U.S. presidents now has learned how to say "President Obama". The feelings of such excitement and optimism surrounding President Obama I have never witnessed in my lifetime, and to be totally honest, I long to experience such a feeling of passion over the election of a conservative president. Am I Jealous? Yes. I want a conservative to rally around, to ensure that we maintain a government that works to create dignified retirement and help families find jobs at a decent wage, as President Obama also wants. I also agree with President Obama that we should focus on what works, instead of ideological dogmas. The problem is that we often work with ill-defined metrics to determine whether our goverment is "working". Was our government "working" when the director of Fannie Mae touted the increased number of sub-prime mortgages?
My greatest hope is that President Obama will have the ability to stand up to his own constituents when it comes to focusing on what works. Recently he noted that tax cuts would be an essential part of economic stimulus. That resonates well with me, as I have a belief that Americans do more for America when they keep more of their earned money than the government does when it has our money. I would be happy to throw this ideology in the trash can when it is proven not to work.
There was one factual error in President Obama's speech. He said "Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath". There were only 43 Americans who have taken the presidential oath - one of them took it twice. Grover Cleveland was both the 22nd and 24th president, the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms.
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Revision - Actually 43 Presidents DID take the oath, because although Grover Cleveland was both #22 and #24, there was a man who was president for just one day - David Rice Atchison. So his swearing in would add one to the total, and put it back to 43. My bad.
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