Long Live Our President

Watching on television the second inaugural of President Obama fills me with two vastly competing emotions.  Even more emotional strings are tugged, but the two overwhelming tugs are these:  Pride in our nation for having the capacity to elect a man of high intellect and the potential for true greatness; Fear that this man of our people may not be allowed to fulfill his great work ahead.

My thorough enjoyment of seeing this leader in action is always guarded because of the theft of my innocence on a November day back in 1963.  No one can ever feel completely safe in our society.  So much hatred and misguided zeal come into play and weigh on the unbalanced minds of some of our fellow citizens.  One madman can destroy much of what otherwise could be a beginning of the powerful rebuilding of our nation.  Shades of Lincoln accompanied so much of our President's speech on Monday, but my mind couldn't totally shake the foreboding that also creeps in when thinking of what greater good Mr. Lincoln could still have done for our Union, had not a madman stolen life from this great leader.  We probably would not have been hampered for a century in our development of civil rights, and we may not have had to witness the death of yet another strong leader at the hand of another madman in 1968.  And still another in that same year.

Make no mistake, the eventual history of our society will treat our sitting President with the glowing terms he so richly deserves.  It simply frightens me that so often, true greatness is feared, hated and sometimes cut short by the myopia that surrounds us.  Fortunately a cutting short of this man's time in office was not done at the ballot box, but there are so many radical people who would feel that a high calling could be fulfilled at the point of a gun.

So my great hope is that the security details are all completely effective and that Mr. Obama will be ever cognizant of his need to take as few chances as necessary in doing his important job.  It is my further hope that one day this statesman will be as effective and as active in his post-elected office position as is our former President Clinton today.  So much more accomplishment could be ahead for Mr. Obama and for our nation's betterment if he is allowed to continue using that amazing intellect until he is quite elderly.

Long live Barack Obama.