Inauguration of Barack Obama ~ 44th President of the United States

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence - the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

The Inauguration of Barack Obama was filled with amazing pomp and circumstance, tradition, electricity, history, joy, relief, and somberness. His Inauguration speech embodied the commitment to our ideals as brought forth by our founding fathers, the renewal, individual responsibility, engagement, and collaboration that will be required to meet the challenges of the future. It was everything that we needed to inspire us on this special day.

It's a New Day

Will.i.am has a great song and video to celebrate the election of Barack Obama as our 44th President - "It's a New Day". It's infectious in it's optimism and hope, that you can't help but dance with joy.

Train to the Inauguration

Well Obama has kicked-off his Inauguration with the historic train ride from Philadelphia to Washington DC.

His speech in the 30th Street Train Station was filled with promise, grace, and encouragement. It again reminds me what a once in a lifetime President we have before us. It is not to say that we can expect Barack Obama to fix all the deep and troubling problems we have before us, but his leadership, intelligence, and his ability to connect with the American people demonstrates what a truly remarkable and promising President he will be - not just the US, but in the international community.

And yet while our problems may be new, what is required to overcome them is not. What is required is the same perseverance and idealism that our founders displayed. What is required is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives - from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry - an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels.

That is the reason I launched my campaign for the presidency nearly two years ago. I did so in the belief that the most fundamental American ideal, that a better life is in store for all those willing to work for it, was slipping out of reach. That Washington was serving the interests of the few, not the many. And that our politics had grown too small for the scale of the challenges we faced.

But I also believed something else. I believed that our future is our choice, and that if we could just recognize ourselves in one another and bring everyone together - Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, north, south, east and west, black, white, Latino, Asian, and Native American, gay and straight, disabled and not - then not only would we restore hope and opportunity in places that yearned for both, but maybe, just maybe, we might perfect our union in the process.

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