For one day, for one hour, let us take a bow as a country. Nearly 233 years after our founding, 144 years after the close of our Civil War and 46 years after Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, this crazy quilt of immigrants called Americans finally elected a black man, Barack Hussein Obama, as president. Walking back from the inauguration, I saw an African-American street vendor wearing a home-stenciled T-shirt that pretty well captured the moment — and then some. It said: “Mission Accomplished.”

so wrote New York Times columnist Tom Friedman

I am struck by this presidents calm, cocksure presence, his language using words that are familiar, yet when coupled with his conviction that even the hardest problem is fixable if only we are dedicated enough, strong enough, responsible enough to take it on, sweeps me up and allows my imagination to once again think of what Americas promise to the world is. His words thus far unsullied by political defeats, can inspire, and rekindle hope and possibilities that even the older, less moved by rhetoric, citizens can feel, a reawakening of a country that's best moments are the result of the better angels in all of us working together in an unselfish way to accomplish what the founding fathers also dreamed of, a land founded on the establishment of and the protection of every citizens rights, civil, and religious, to strive for a life of our own choosing. I pray for God's blessing on our new president, and in the final analysis on us. If he succeeds we all succeed.

so wrote me.