Behind a great man, a goblin...

Where'd this picture come from? Anyway, hey! What a relief! Can you feel the competence and the corrective enzymes beginning to circulate through your veins?

Political persuasion aside, doesn't Obama have qualities you genuinely admire - as opposed to say, John Kerry, who tried to exhibit qualities that sounded like things we were supposed to admire, but failed to connect with us in any real way? For as many times as we've allowed ourselves to be hoodwinked, lied to, and chiseled, I still think that the American people have a pretty good bullshit meter. It will be nice, at least through the honeymoon period, to feel like our country is represented around the world by someone who makes many of us proud (without being prideful).

As much as I like the man, part of me is bothered by an Obama presidency: The fact that he can only be a band-aid at a beheading. A salve on a sick government and an ailing global society. He stands for change within the confines of an inherently toxic system. That said, I've noticed that a band-aids and salves are very good things. They can protect you from further infection, and give your small wounds a chance to heal. Maybe after a period of small wound healing, there can be some deep changes made to the root sources of our problems.

While we're on the subject, I'm intrigued by this emerging psychological pattern of Democrat presidents who are fueled by the childhood wounds of paternal abandonment coupled with maternal fortitude. Of course Bill and Barack are very different people - Bill's heated neediness was always in full display and frequently lead him into trouble, whereas Barack's calm and collected coolness appears, at this stage, to contain a powerful mystery within. Will the veneer crack in four years?