A Good Hollywood TearJerker

Waving a fond farewell to the reign of error, Barack Hussein Obama became the nation's 44th president today and America's first black president. His inaugural address balanced hope with reality, rhetoric with inspiration and responsibility with blame.

To the Environmental Advocates he said:

"We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories."

To the blue collar manual labor workers who built this country, he said:

"In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom."

To the men and women who have died in uniform he said:

"For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn. Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction."

To the Rushes and Hannitys and agitators of the world, he said:

"What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works."

His tough talk was clear, decisive and tactful but it was when he said the following when myself and many of my friends began to cry:

"To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."