Change Comes to Washington...

I've never thought of myself as overly-political. But, today's inauguration was appointment viewing for me. I made sure that I was going to be able to watch today's festivities.

I have to admit being slightly disappointed in the new President's speech. It was probably the third most impressive speech I've seen him give. Not that he needed to hit a homerun - they can't take the election back, but this was his chance to pull in some of the doubters. He was on almost every channel in the world, it was an opportunity to capture the world's attention. I would put it behind the speech he gave the night he won the election and well behind his Red State/Blue State speech he gave at the 2004 Democratic Convention. And, when you're taking over the most powerful office in the land, shouldn't the oath be more than 4 sentences? Seems a little anti-climactic for such a big deal.

Now, I'll agree with my Republican friends (ok, friend - I've just got the one) that I don't think Obama will be able to turn this around in a week. People are talking as if he'll come in and all the problems in the world will be solved. Probably going to get worse before it gets better. Personally, I think it will be more like JFK's first 100 days when they asked him what surprised him and he responded with "When we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we'd been saying they were."

But, I still think that Obama has a better chance of turning this country around than McCain would. It was time for a new voice, a new direction and a new party to have power. Just look at the mall this afternoon - there were 2 million people there and they had to turn people away. President Obama managed to get people interested in politics at a time when most people are pretty down about their government. And, at the end of the day, the only thing that will turn around the problems in this country will be if people get involved and don't let their government officials spend valuable time or money arguing about a bridge to nowhere.

The question now is what do I put on my cellphone countdown? I've been counting down to Bush's last day for about two years. It'll be odd not to see the little clock in the corner of my phone's display.

-Just making sure this blog doesn't get too serious, cause that would be weird, I'm throwing in a link to the greatest invention ever. This thing will finally allow you to delay your radio enough to sync it to your HDTV broadcasts. No more listening to Joe Buck, Tim McCarver, Mike Fratello or Dan Deirdorf. Could have used this at last year's Super Bowl or any of the World Series.