All right, all right, I lied yesterday, so sue me.

This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that's on my mind tonight's about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing: Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons -- because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America -- the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes, we can.

At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes, we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs, a new sense of common purpose. Yes, we can.

When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes, we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that "We Shall Overcome." Yes, we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination.

And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change.

Yes, we can.

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves: if our children should live to see the next century--if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper--what change will they see? What progress will we have made?

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment.

This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.


I don't care who you are or who you voted for, that is damn good stuff right there.

I feel so hopeful right now, so proud of what has been done here, and though I know it will fade and reality will visit once more, I will enjoy it while I can. No one can question that this is the end of one era and the beginning of something new; while it remains to be seen whether the new era is better than the last, for now there is hope. To borrow from my favorite film on this momentous day: Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.

Obama and race.

Here is some very interesting reading from a few modern historians about the "self-consciously historic" election of yesterday.

Choice quote:
As we congratulate ourselves for overcoming four centuries of racial oppression, we need to recognize the extent to which Barack Obama also stands outside of that history. Barack Obama stands tall as a symbol of black achievement but he does so as a man with no roots in those aspects of the black American experience that have poisoned American race relations. He has no roots in American slavery, the era of Jim Crow, or urban ghettos. Is it possible that the only African-American who could cross the fragile bridge across the racial divide was a man unassociated with the great crucibles of African-American life?

I think it's important that we recognize that while Barack Obama is a black man in terms of heritage and skin color, he's white in a lot of significant ways, which is undoubtedly why he was so palatable to so many voters. And even so, he only carried a minority of the total white voters. I really wonder how many McCain voters voted the way they did because they couldn't bring themselves to vote for a black man. How else can you explain the sign I saw in my own neighborhood, "Another Democrat For McCain"? What else can be significant enough a distinction to cause someone to support the party whose beliefs are counter to their own? It's not unlike the Hillary Clinton supporters (mostly women) who threatened to throw their support to McCain after Obama clinched the nomination--the very audience the McCain camp had in mind when they selected Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Anyway. It's going to be pretty interesting, I think, to see how the next 4 years pan out. Assuming Obama isn't assassinated by some fanatic who simply cannot stand to see a black man in the White House. I really hope that's a far-fetched possibility, but you just never know.