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I just watched John McCain's concession speech and Barack Obama's acceptance speech for the presidency of the United States.
First of all, I have to say that Senator McCain's concession speech was incredibly classy. I honestly can't imagine anyone being more gratious about it, and more supportive of a former opponent. He really did a very nice job.
I think Senator Obama's speech was pretty good too. The biginning was good, the middle bit was a bit formulaic, and the end bit was very good. I think it's very good and classy that he called out his campaign manager and his strategist. I think he understands the import of the events of today and I think he carried it well. There were a few American-centric bits when he was talking to people in other countries that should have been left out ("American leadership"); while I think that the idea of improving our democracy is a good and valiant and vital one, the idea that it could possibly be "perfected" is a dangerous one.
However, two very fundamental things struck me about that speech.
1) The American flag has been taken back from being a symbol of blind support of the Iraq war. I'm so very glad.
2) My work is periphrially related to initiatives that come from the President's office (along with many thousands of other programs). The idea that some of the ideas of my work were passing across the desk of our current president has always given me the screaming heebie-jeebies. It occured to me tonight, listening to Barack Obama, that although there have been presidents in my life time that would have Ok to work for or with, Obama will be the first that I can think of that I would be proud to work with.
(By the way, I think it's telling that when McCain mentioned Obama, there were boos. When Obama mentioned McCain, there were cheers (hesitant, but they were there).)
I promise--posts about flying and electronics and cats soon.