As a form of gallows humor, Monty Python's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" is unparalleled. If you are feeling glum, look on the bright side of the Obama presidency....

5. President Obama and the Democrat controlled Congress are united, at least they say they are, in getting American troops out of Iraq. However good the surge has been for the mission, the mission hasn't been good for America. Come home soon.

4. Liberal principles--big government at home and abroad--which are proven failures, will now be rightly associated with liberals rather than with the people Americans incorrectly assume are conservatives. Republicans, by their embrace of big government, have disqualified themselves from leading the nation. Time in the wilderness should help conservatives, and perhaps the GOP as well, to "get back to where you once belonged."

3. A black man, a son of an immigrant becoming president makes real the American Dream to those who have viewed it as more dream than reality. The alienated become integrated. America is better when all Americans feel a part of America. The mere fact that Barack Obama has been elected president, no matter how he performs in office, has this beneficial effect.

2. That Virginia, the heart of the old Confederacy, helped put the first black man in the White House, is an extraordinarry event for our nation. It puts an exclamation point on more than a century of racial reconcilation.

1. America needs a change. Perhaps not "change we can believe in," but it needs some kind of redirection to breathe new life into a deflated nation. It's been a bad decade--a presidential impeachment, the 9/11 bombings of the functioning symbols of our military and economic might, the Iraq debacle, and economic stagnation. My motto is "it can always get worse." But when you're up the creek, it's probably a good idea to change the horse who brought you there.

They'll be much time over the course of the next few years to explore the downsides of a Barack Obama presidency. Enjoy the honeymoon while it lasts.

Thanks for this one, Dan. I did not feel much emotion (I had prepared myself for this moment about a week ago) today, except when an idiotic aquaintance of mine gleefully expressed his hope that socialist ideas would influence our economy.

As a 23 year old, I am perhaps one of your younger readers. I have not been alive for some of the darker moments this nation has seen, but I have seen some. The emotion I felt upon hearing the idiot's words was similar to the feeling I felt on 9/11 and when I viewed the Nick Berg execution. I felt a combustible mix of rage, sadness and determination, and I felt it in my bones.

Thanks for the positive words.

Clarification: Determination to fight evil, that is.

At times like these there is a tendency to over-ana-lyze the question of why Barack Obama captured the presidency. Let's look at the cold hard facts: for the past six years the Republican Party, and the wider conservative movement, has done nothing but defend Bush's criminal Iraq war, the falsehoods of his administration, and his crimes against the Constitution. What about balancing the budget? Barely a peep. What about tax reform, possibly a flat tax? Nothing. What about securing our borders from illegal immigrants? Well...

My advice to conservatives: stop concocting rationales to defend illegal wars, war crimes, and crimes against the Constitution. Defend the Constitution. Oppose war crimes. Don't spread fear and falsehoods to start wars that are not in our national interest. Your fortunes will look much brighter next time.

Americans have acted like the spoiled babies that they are. They enjoy the highest standard of living in the world, live in vitual 24 hour security, can move freely around our country and the world and yet, things have been SO BAD for the last eight years (or so they've been convinced) that they would chance four years with an admitted radical racist socialist for......wait for it......Change!

F'ing weak. And stupid.

I choose not to look on the bright side and think that this is the beginning of the end for the U.S. of KKK, the new Rome.

At least now, any time someone bad-mouths America, I can tell the bastards, without hesitation or irony or even "those looks" (you know the ones I mean) to kiss my black ass.

Thanks for the good laugh, Homer.

Dan, great post! Homer! I have to remember to NOT eat anything when reading some of your comments! Damn it, boy!

ASDF, it's interesting that you are now expressing the attitude of a smug liberal elitist. The American people are "spoiled brats" who just don't understand the how wonderful President Bush is. If only the American people were as smart as you, they would love President Bush just as much as you. Whatever,

I don't think the facts support the idea that the last eight years have been that great, but that's beside the point. The Bush Cult continues to misunderstand the election results. Bush has an approval rating of about 20%. Why? Is it only because of the liberal media? Why didn't the liberal media elect Mondale or Dukasis?

Bush's approval rating is so low because he's been a terrible president. The Bush Cult, however, simply cannot bring itself to acknowledge that this low approval rating is a legitimate and rational response to his presidency. If you don't understand this, then you are just as out of touch as the smug ivory tower intellectuals you frequently condemn.

Obama didn't win because of his policies, or his race, or his eloquence. He won because he isn't George Bush -- or seen as a continuation of George Bush. The Democrats could have nominated a Cyclops and the Cyclops would've beat John McCain.

But you aren't interested in understanding the election results. You simply lash out at the American people for failing to honor your cult hero, George Bush.

Agree heartily on #3. I could have wished for a Republican African American, though.

It's funny, I hear how "approving" the world is that we elected a black president. As if we were catching up to the rest of the world in voting minority races into the position of chief executive of the state.

Eric,

I’ll not be leaving the country like the ‘smug liberal elitists’ and I will get over it. I’m just very disappointed with my fellow Americans as they have voted for a fraud.

And please, stop being a Johnny one note. We get it. You think Bush is evil and responsible for everything from the kidnapped Lindbergh baby to post nasal drip.

But contrary to how you think, Bush was not THE reason Obama got elected. One of them? Of course. Number one was that McCain was a poor candidate. And let’s consider that the country has been tacking left after years of sub par public schooling and the liberal indoctrination that’s gone on there. As part of that our fellow Americans are grossly uninformed thanks to the one size fits all mainstream media and are comfortably more interested in who’s on American Idol or Dancing with the Stars than putting a little bit of effort into getting the lowdown on a fellow who will be the most powerful person on the Planet and will hold sway over what happens in their lives regularly. Also, many people just wanted to vote for the black guy, an overwhelming shift in the vote was a demographic one.

So consider this before you continue your boring tirade against Sata.. Bush.

Here's one more. Obama ran on a promise to cut taxes for 95% of Americans.

Granted, he probably won't keep it, some of the tax cuts are transfer payments in disguise, and others are unhelpful cuts in payroll taxes.

But the very fact he made that promise shows that SOME kind of tax cuts are a political necessity. That is something to fell good about.

That's going to be a good trick when he proposes trillions in new spending and only 47% of the population pay taxes in the first place.