Not In My Lifetime

[sleigh]

Until recently, I really didn't think that there was a chance in hell that I would see a black man as president of our country. I'm looking forward to seeing that historic moment today.

And hopefully, if I live long enough, I might see a few other firsts:

-- A woman elected president (as long as it's not Sarah Palin, please...). That, I think, is conceivable. Hillary Clinton's run for the nomination, and (I must admit) the choice of Palin as McCain's running mate have hopefully been enough to break down the barriers that Geraldine Ferraro first assaulted back in '84.

-- An openly gay person elected president. I suspect that one may have to wait a long, long time...

-- An openly non-Christian elected president. My preference would be for an openly agnostic or atheist, which I think is the one with the least chance. I suspect that a Jewish president is most conceivable. A Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, etc. is nearly on a par with an agnostic or atheist.

What barrier(s) would you like to see broken in the future? What do you think the chances are?

Comments

[richrichmond.livejournal.com]

an openly honest one? one who successfully enacts and enforces real reform in government?

All I want is someone to legislate fairly and stay out of my way. I really hope Obama can do this.

Also, am I the only one that thinks this inauguration is a bit much? Do the oath and get to work. Especially in a time of war and economic collapse. Clinton's second one was the only one I thought, yeah this is OK. We seem to be doing OK. But now, it seems a little much. I'd have loved for Obama to have said "you know what folks. thanks for your support. But stay home or go to work or go spend some cash. Lets get started." Skip the pomp and circumstance and get to work.

I think I heard $150 million figure bantered around for the inauguration? come on...While all this is going on the Dow is down 200 plus points and one of my buddys (a former apple co-worker of ours) got the "furlough" news today from his design firm.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

I suspect that we don't want the same thing of government (which is fine) -- one person's "fair" legislation and someone else's can be two entirely different things...

I think, though, that this inauguration was needed to allow people to come together and celebrate, and to give a sense of unity and hope to people. Yeah, saying "we're in deep and we gotta get to work now" would have been a good message as well, but I've no real objection to this. $150M (if that's indeed what it cost) sounds like a lot, but it's a drop in the proverbial bucket of the federal budget.