Now comes the hard part

After eight years of an administration devoted to fumbling its way back to the past, today America decided to have a future again. Our president elect is a man with vision. What a contrast from President Bush, whose sense of vision seemed to extend no further than whatever might be written on a crib sheet tucked up his sleeve. And for the most important problems, there was no crib sheet for him to follow.

In just one day we have gone from quite probably our worst president to one of our best. I know President Bush compares his legacy with that of Harry S Truman. Truman actually had lower public opinion numbers than Bush. But Bush's comparison has the ring of excuses made by failing students ("Bill Gates didn't finish college" and the like). President Truman was unpopular because he made hard decisions that were unpopular--which is what a leader must do sometimes. The Bush record is a long string of inept decisions and obliviousness to their consequences. Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that said "The buck stops here." President Bush was not a leader, and his administration worked hard to shield him and its other members from being held accountable for their decisions (secret torture memos and so on).

But enough of the past, this election is about our future and the future of the world.

I heard man-on-the-street interviews with voters who said they were afraid that a President Obama would raise spending and taxes. President Bush has already raised spending, and a major cause of the ongoing financial crisis is that he misspent the money in ways that don't add to the productivity of our economy. This waste adds up to a couple of trillion dollars in lost opportunity. And Bush has already raised taxes because these vast sums of money were borrowed and have to be paid back.

So, President Obama inherits a colossal mess. If ever we need a leader, it is now, and I have confidence him. Wars, recession, world financial collapse, global warming, nuclear threats from rogue nations, the potential for pandemics. I know people are concerned about Obama's experience. This world is a different place from the one I grew up in. I respect John McCain's experience, but this is a different world from the one he grew up in, too. Yes, some old problems exist. Russia can--and does--behave like the old Soviet Union used to. But this is a new world, and Obama can see it in ways McCain can't. This is a world where Obama's leadership qualities, intelligence, and vision will serve us better than McCain's long view.

The age issue was important in the election, and as the baby boom generation ages we are seeing the passing of the torch. This is the first time I will be older than the president--Obama is at the very tail end of the baby boom, and I am one year older than him.

It's not easy to pass the torch. It's a little like the first time you go to a doctor who is younger than you. All your life older, wiser people were your doctor--and then there comes that day when, sitting naked in a flimsy paper smock, your life is in the hands of someone young enough that you might have told them to look both ways before crossing the street just a few years before.

For those of us old enough to vote--and older--the election of an African American to the presidency is an amazing development. Most transitions into the future are incremental, nearly unnoticed. Not this one. This is something new for us. We now live in a world in which ex-president Mandela sent a telegram of congratulations to President-Elect Obama. But for the little kids I saw holding their mothers' skirts at the polling station this morning, this is normal. By the way, those of you who could have voted in the past and simply never bothered to till today, you have had the power to make this change all along. It is perhaps President-Elect Obama's first act as a leader to have shown you this.