this is the moment

Barack Obama, floor: Jimmy Carter. Meek failure in the face of enormous challenges.

Barack Obama, probable outcome: Dwight Eisenhower. Stable, careful leadership; the boats unrocked, but life in America gets generally better.

Barack Obama, ceiling: Ten years from now, historians will no longer, as a broad, nonpartisan consensus, acknowledge Three best Presidents (Lincoln, Washington, FDR). They will acknowledge Four.




Four years ago, I knew Kerry would lose, and I was disappointed in a cynical, kinda apathetic way. I mainly felt relieved just to be in New York, which really felt like the last, lonely refuge for the things that I believe in. One of the exhilirating sensations that took over last night, running through the cheering crowds all over the city last night:

America shares my values again.

We said No to torture. We said No to senseless war. No to arbitrary, vicious hate and paranoia. We said Yes to science, and Yes to culture, and Yes to diplomacy, and Yes to intelligent leadership. Yes to respecting one another, Yes to seeing what we can do For other people, instead of just Against them. Yes to talking to the world. Yes to dignity, Yes to a campaign that treated us like adults and made an honest case for itself. Yes to eachother.

We said Yes to Barack Obama.


And now, ladies and gentlemen, it's all about the beans.