The Audacity of Hope

I am just fifty-one, so I haven’t experienced the kind of economic strife the likes of what we as a nation endured in the great depression of the nineteen thirties. However we are facing just such an ordeal after the lack of leadership on the domestic front of the past eight years.

So now what is there to do? How do we recover from this economic nightmare? President Obama has created a wave of hope and has inspired many to have hope in the future. We have witnessed the passing of the largest economic package in the history of the country in less than thirty days.

Of course it was passed basically down party lines. This doesn’t seem to lend itself to the kind of bipartisanship we so desperately need. The political pundits have had a field day with this fact. But polls show that the America people still have hope and confidence in the new administration.

But the president seems undeterred by the lack of support from across the aisle. The status quo in Washington wasn’t an over night development and change will take time. But the press conference I saw today was a real sign of encouragement. The president held a meeting with leaders from both parties and took question from them as well as sought input. The most dramatic moment in my opinion came at the beginning of the conference. The president called first on his opponent in the presidential election senator John McCain.

How audacious of him, to think that we could come together and work as one people to solve our problems. In every challenge we have faced, it has been a leader that saw the best in the American people. Yes hope is audacious by its very nature. Because hope flies in the face of convention and as Robert Kennedy said” some people see things and say why, I see things that never where and say why not.”