POST-ELECTION UPDATE: Now that Obama has become our President-elect, I join in his hope that we can mend our partisan differences and get a fresh start by joining together in a united effort to begin solving the very serious problems our country faces. The bitter partisanship has become so divisive over the years that it has hurt all of us in varying ways. It's time to start thinking of ourselves first and foremost as Americans rather than Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, always at each other's throats. That's the patriotic thing to do.

We have worse enemies than our fellow citizens. There's a lot of bitterness and anger with each other to get past, but with some time, effort, and, most importantly, intention, we can overcome our differences and unite as Americans. That's the opportunity that we now have. Forgiveness is a great healer of wounds.

McCain has, as Obama stated, served his country well in ways that most of us can't even begin to really identify with. Let's let it go. Let's get over each other.

Note: Just received word from a friend in Switzerland re straw polls they've run in Europe. 89% of the Swiss would have voted for Obama, and 75% of all of Europe. So Europe is hoping this signals an opportunity to strengthen our alliances with them again.

ORIGINAL COMMENT: First, I want a President who's a lot smarter than most of us. Barack Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard law school, arguably the best law school in the nation. The highest honor one can achieve in law school is not only to be among the elite few to be selected for the law review (a scholarly journal focusing on legal issues), but to be elected its editor-in-chief. He was the first black ever to do so. Got his B.A. from Columbia, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations. He was a lecturer of constitutional law at the U. of Chicago Law School, another of the best law schools in the U.S., from 1993 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004.

Second, I want a President with outstanding character and morality (for a change). Obama strikes me as a guy who who has just that, and I've read nothing but good things about him in that respect. Third, while executive experience is a plus, it's not a necessity. Abraham Lincoln and JFK did just fine for not having previously been political executives. I think Obama has demonstrated he can manage political campaigns and his U.S. and state senate offices well, and there's no reason to think he couldn't manage well as President. The staff Obama recruited for his Senate office were "considered exceptional for a first-term incoming senator." Wikipedia, Barack Obama.

Finally, I want a President who has acted on his beliefs, not just talked about them. For only having been in the U.S. Senate (nearly) four years, Obama's accomplishments are impressive; see the Wikipedia article. For his stances on the major issues, see Issues. He's a strategic thinker and very analytical. In the fall of 2002, before the start of the Iraq War, he was extraordinarily prescient in saying "I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings." Some reviewers have stated he wants to "invade" Pakistan. That's BS; he wants Pakistan as an ally. The one out-of-context sentence of Obama's seized upon by some reviewers was: "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets [in the mountains of Pakistan] and President Musharraf wont act, we will." For the actual text of that speech, see it here. Here are the pertinent parts of the speech: "[Our] security is most threatened by the al-Qaeda and Taliban sanctuary in the tribal regions of northwest Pakistan. Al-Qaeda terrorists train, travel, and maintain global communications in this safe-haven. The Taliban pursues a hit and run strategy, striking in Afghanistan, then skulking across the border to safety. . . . There must be no safe-haven for terrorists who threaten America. . . . I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf wont act, we will. . . . We must help Pakistan invest in the provinces along the Afghan border, so that the extremists program of hate is met with one of hope."