So It Begins...

Today, Barack H. Obama became the 44th President of the United States.

More than a million people made an appearance in person to wish him, and our nation, well.

Some might be disappointed that they did not hear the soaring rhetorical speech. But if you heard the President's well crafted call-to-arms, you heard a man ready to lead, ready to work, and ready to make government work for the People again.

The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

I am ready to do my part. Again with pride. Are you? It will take all of use to make those so rooted in Washington to understand that a new day dawned today, the 20th of January, 2009.

(Getty photo via BBC News.)