...with joy and relief, as I looked out on the crowds in Grant Park celebrating the election of our new president. So many people -- young and old, black and white, had tears running down their faces
Obama's speech was just like him -- direct, simple, eloquent, and quintessentially American. He called us to work for the common good -- not to go shopping.
The "relief" I felt comes partly from lifting the terrible fear that hung over me for so long: That the next president would appoint Supreme Court justices who would send our beloved country even further down the road to a quasi-totalitarian state ruled -- as it has been for the last eight years -- by unchecked corporate greed unmatched in my (long) voting memory.
Now, Justice Stevens, at 88, may feel it safe to retire, and Justice Souter may leave the Court where he has not lately been too happy. The cabal of Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts will be on the OTHER side of the 5-4 decisions that have so cynically sold us out on every aspect of our lives.
People don't often stop and think how directly their lives are affected by the Supreme Court's decisions.
Now we have hope that our new President, governing from the center, will nominate centrist Justices who don't cynically interpret the Constitution for the benefit of religious fanatics, corporate thieves and anti-environmental hatchetmen.
Obama - You're going to need all the luck in the world, bringing together a divided nation
"The Audacity of Hope" -- he was already looking far, far ahead.