On Hope, Change

I am on my lunch break right now, watching the Inaugural luncheon and getting ready for the parade to tie a big bow on the meat of the day's events. Sure there are plenty of parties to keep an eye on tonight, but as far as the big ticket items go, we're getting to the end of the road.

From election night to today, I've been thinking a lot about the man I helped to elect and how all of this fits into the big picture. More to the point, I've been keeping an eye on how the transition unfolded with regards to the people around me who didn't vote for Obama this time.

Of the endless Facebook sniping from both sides it boiled down to two refrains:

1.) Anyone who voted for Obama is blindly following his cult of celebrity and variants on the Internet rumors.
2.) Anyone who didn't is a close-minded racist who was an idiot for continuing to support former President Bush.

None of these ideas are fully formed for me yet, but I have a few rhetorical questions that I keep coming back to:

* What's so bad about idealism? I know it's shorthand for youth, inexperience and blind stupidity, but at its base levels, what is so bad about aspiring to the ideal?
* For that matter what's so damaging about a candidate who trades in hope for the country and its citizens? I can see skepticism, but on its own, hope isn't such a bad thing.

My wife watched the Oath of Office from a crowded waiting room at the University of Chicago Hospitals in Hyde Park and said she was moved by being in such a diverse group as they watched the ceremony.

I was in the Pioneer Court in the shadow of the Tribune Tower with a small group of people who gathered to watch on two mobile big screens set up for the event. Many people brought their children to watch the event and more than a few tears were shed as President Obama addressed the country for the first time.

While much has been written and discussed about this being a new day for the United States and the sea change in America's political and social landscape, I believe that any president has a hard time making sweeping changes. That's not a bad thing, it's just the way our government is constructed and I wouldn't change that if given the chance.

To all of those who claim that he hasn't done anything of substance and doesn't deserve the adoration, that's a valid point. However, making a change politically is quite different from making a difference in the culture at large.

When it comes to that point, convince me that he hasn't done so already.