Quote of the Moment

I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear...

Honestly, it was all over but the shouting after that today.  A thunderclap in American history.

But check out the speech here.  Obama sets the bar pretty high, and a lot of the initial feedback--and my initial perception from listening to it live--was that it was a really good, but not excellent, speech.  Just a standard Obama speech: strong, bringing the heat.  After reading it, however, it registers just how appropriate his tone was for the troubles facing the nation.  Much like his acceptance speech in Grant Park, there's no sugarcoating our problems--indeed, during parts of the speech, I thought he was going to have to turn around and ask outgoing President Bush if he wanted to excuse himself for parts of it that were, shall we say, not kind in recounting the past 8 years.   It made the pivot to the more optimistic, value-stating portion a relief--not only to alleviate the potential awkwardness of skewering a former President sitting feet away from the podium, but also to lift the spirits of the crowds.  

In person, the relief of moving on to a renewed values statement for the nation outweighed the words themselves.  But I have a sneaking suspicion that the words themselves will echo through the years, much more so than the discomfort of being reminded about our present (and recent past) foibles.