How astonishing was it to see the humanity that decended upon Washington D.C. yesterday.
Every moment of this breathtaking campaign has blown away the one before it. Watching the crowds grow with every week of the primary season. Waiting in a line that stretched around Joe Louis Arena, extended behind Cobo Hall and Cobo Arena and ended just past the Renaissance Center, just to see him in person and hear him speak. Being told I had arrived late for an Obama rally in downtown Detroit was wasn't to begin for another three hours. And he hadn't even won the nomination.
The junior senator from Illinois ground the Clinton machine to a halt, a feat nearly impossible to overstate. Actually, he not only defeated archrival Hilary in the Democratic primaries, but effectively ended her 2012 campaign as well by ultimately appointing her as his Secretary of State. He filled the 72,000-seat home of the Denver Broncos to accept his party's nomination. Broncos head coach Mike Shanahan couldn't even do that this season. In debate after debate, he stood toe-to-toe with John McCain, an American military hero if ever there was one. And he filled Grant Park at 10pm on a chilly November night as half a million people counted down the seconds until the unthinkable became reality and Barack Obama was projected to become the next President of the United States.
As if that weren't impressive enough, yesterday's magnificent spectacle became the highlight of all highlights, proof positive of the fortitude of human spirit. Partly due to his being the first black man to take the Oath of Office (technically he's of mixed race; even still, he's the first in that category as well). Partly due to a seismic shift in party leadership. And partly due to Aretha Franklin's stunning hat (which, incidentally, was designed by a man who very nearly became my brother-in-law... I'd recognize his style anywhere).
But mostly, yesterday's celebration was the ebbing momentum caused by eight years of corrupt leadership, its atrocities more egregious than any of its predecessors. From enabling the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression, to shifting our military attention away from the man who authorized the attack and collapse of the World Trade Center towers, to using misleading and downright false information to lead us into war with a country that hadn't attacked us, to turning our telecommunications industry into spy vehicles for wiretapping Americans illegally and then granting them retroactive immunity, to... you get the idea.
So now the streets have been swept, the grandstands folded and stored, the porta-potties trucked away. Now we officially put our collective faith in the hands of an untested intellectual with a resume of bridging differences and uniting the divided.
If all else fails, at least we can travel the world without having to wear the Canadian flag somewhere on our bodies. Too bad can't afford to.
