Obama!

Since this is the best I have felt about being an American in a long time, I am having a two week moratorium on thinking about what's wrong with our country and I am just going to be happy about the election and what it means. Honestly, I've been a mess for the last few days. Every time I see news coverage of the election I start crying again, it doesn't help that I stayed up all night to see all the coverage but I am now recovered sleep wise and still feel the same way.

Quickly and not comprehensively enough summing it up: 1) 40 years ago it wouldn't have been legal for me to have gotten married and now we have a mixed president; 2) putting aside all of his policies, W's man of the people anti-elitist cowboy act made us look bad (which concrete political effects) and Obama's thoughtful, professorial approach is going to make us look good again.

The best way I have seen it described is cathartic. I am so tired of seeing Bush up there with his "I'm a C student who is getting over for the moment" look on his face every time he gave a speech. It was truly a moment of catharsis for me to see Obama up there giving that amazingly smart and obviously multilayered speech.

The impact here in France has been amazing. Newspapers continue to run stories about the election and wonder whether it could happen here. The ideals of the French Republicanism are being questioned. People think the policy of officially ignoring race (there are no statistics kept about race here because everyone is French) seems to have failed. Affirmative action is being considered. They can't figure out how they went from being a country that was ahead of American in race relations to one that seems to be so far behind it.

French people are coming up to me and saying things like: "you Americans have taught us a lesson again; it's been a long time but you are really leading the way"; "I want to move to America"; "something like this could never happen in France"; "I wish I could move to America and start having kids because it is a place of hope"; and "It will be at least 50 years before any minority gets elected here." I am sure it is clear but there was no such talk before November 5th, at least not that I heard.