Camelot regained

It's a new dawn, it really is a new day. the nightmare has fled, having been chased away/ by the forces of light in bright array. Sorry for the cod poetry (the form was never my forte), but this is a new chapter in not just American history, but world history. The rabid right-wing may believe it presages the Apocalypse, but they would have said that about any Democrat president and, anyway, isn't that, in their interpretation of faith, what they want? But no, a majority of Americans are facing up to the problems swirling around them - an imbalanced and debt-laden, creeping, seemingly inexorable climate change and resurgent hostile states taking advantage of the USA's weakness. This is in addition to shedding the shabby image of America abroad and healing the body of the US constition which has been so grievously abused over the last eight years. That the American people's choice of leader of the free world (and much else besides) is black - let's not quibble, he is - is so much the better. Barack Obama allows us to look to the future with tangible hope for the first time in the best part of a decade.
Apart from the Chief Justice fluffing his lines (the man another awkward legacy of Obama's predecessor) and so throwing the man he was swearing in, the day went like a dream. I thought that with a day or two left Dick Cheney might have George Bush assassinated, take over and declare martial law and a state of emergency to prolong the corrupt rule he has so often personified. In the end, the strongman had to be carted out of the White House in a wheelchair, having injured his back while packing. A fitting end. Bush helicoptering away back to the stone he crawled out from under is such a poignant reminder of another president 25 years ago, whose name is blackened in history. Some sycophants have tried to drum up support for the previous administration's misrule, twisting or ignoring facts, posing only the most optimistic of outlooks and generally abusing all those who disagree - a bit like the conduct of the Bush administration. Funny that.
Obama gave a very muscular speech which was a direct challange not just to North Korea and Iran, but also China and Russia. To paraphrase "your people will remember you more for what you build than what you destroy" I felt was a clear reference to the war in Georgia. Being a Democrat it most definitely was not aimed at Israel, nor was his opposition to those who "slaughter innocent civilians... to achive their aims," though Hamas could well be in his sights. But in Obama we face more of an honest broker in the Middle East - the trouble is only when both sides accuse him of bias towards the other side will he have achieved that, but peace needs to be more lasting than that.
All in all, there are so many worldwide woes, it will be never less than interesting in the path that Obama takes in attempting to solve them.