Goodbye President Bush

The Iraqi journalist throwing his shoes at President Bush was silly and immature. A journalist has the biggest weapon in his hands, his pen. He uses words like cement and mortar to build institutions and personalities or like a hammer to break them. Why use a shoe? Anybody in the world can chuck a shoe at any one, provided he has shoes to spare. This man is no journalist.

The journalist should have tried to throw his shoes at President Saddam Hussein also, when so many Iraqis disagreed with the President’s methods of handling protests. Most probably, the journalist would not have returned home for supper in the evening to his house. He dare to attack Bush because he isn’t as cruel as Saddam Hussein!

Clearly, Iraqi and American security were lacking in speed of response. How can a man throw two objects at the President, one after the other, and security could not nab him after the first throw itself? The security officers should start visiting the gymnasiums for regular workouts.

Full marks to President Bush for his agile responses in ducking the shoes. He seems to be more fit and lithe than all the security personnel.

We the people

By voting in their first African-American president 232 years after they declared their independence from the British, the United States of America showed the world this week that the power of US democracy is alive and well.

History was made on November 4, 2008, when 47-year-old Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States with young, old, black, white, Latino, Asian and native-American voters sweeping him to power in an unprecedented move for a country everyone else believed would never allow a black man to become the leader of the free world.

We were wrong and the American people got it right.

Established democracies with a constitution have always had my deepest respect. But despite the written guarantees people continue to suffer. The constitution as an inanimate entity does nothing for a citizen until citizens themselves decide to practise their rights and allow others that opportunity too.

As the only standing superpower in the world, the United States, its president and its people have the moral obligation to lead by example and this election has exemplified the power of inclusiveness.

As Obama said in his historic speech in his home city of Chicago: "…we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime – two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century". And while he may have been speaking to the American people, the very same challenges affect all the people in the world and including them in the solution would help make this planet a better place.

This should be the time when war should be waged as the last resort, when diplomacy should be given a fighting chance, when the environ-ment should be seriously considered and no parent should have to worry if they can manage to make ends meet.

Obama’s example of the change that 106-year-old Ann Nixon Cooper experienced is poignant; she was born in an age when she could not vote because she was black and a woman. That scenario extends to millions of women around the world today whose voices are silenced and dreams dismissed. The US is a great power today because it is a self correcting society. It makes mistakes but the profound ability to forgive and forget and move on makes it the greatest country in the world.

Obama has his work cut out for him. He still has to win over 47 per cent of the US population who voted for McCain. There’s the war against terror, Iran and its nuclear ambitions. For now, however, let’s just hope that democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope will be shared by Americans with all of us.

But I foreseen a future problem for USA!

Obama

Obama will be sworn in as the 44th US president on Jan. 20, 2009 and will face a crush of immediate challenges, from tackling an economic crisis to ending the war in Iraq and trying to overhaul the US health care system.

McCain saw his hopes for victory evaporate with losses in a string of key battleground states led by Ohio, the state that narrowly clinched President George W. Bush's re-election in 2004, and Virginia, a state that had not backed a Democrat since 1964.

McCain told supporters in Phoenix he had called Obama to congratulate him on his victory and praised his foe's inspirational and precedent-shattering campaign.

"We have come to the end of a long journey," McCain told supporters. "I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him but offering our next president our goodwill."

Obama led a Democratic electoral landslide that also expanded the party's majorities in both chambers of Congress and firmly repudiated eight years of Bush's leadership.

The win by Obama, son of a black father from Kenya and white mother from Kansas, marked a milestone in US history. It came 45 years after the height of the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King.

The announcement of Obama's win on US television networks set off celebrations by supporters around the country, from Times Square in New York to Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, King's home church.

"This is a great night. This is an unbelievable night," said US Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, who was brutally beaten by police in Selma, Alabama, during a voting rights march in the 1960s.

Tens of thousands of Obama supporters gathered in Chicago's Grant Park for an election night celebration, cheering results that showed his victories in key states. Obama was to address the crowd later in the evening.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a civil rights leader, joined the celebrations, tears streaming down his cheeks.

In a campaign dominated at the end by a flood of bad news on the economy, Obama's leadership and proposals on how to handle the crisis tipped the race in his favor. Exit polls showed six of every 10 voters listed the economy as the top issue.

Obama has promised to restore US leadership in the world by working closely with foreign allies and dropping some of the policies that made Bush an unpopular leader at home and abroad.

McCain, a 72-year-old Arizona senator and former Vietnam War prisoner, had hoped to become the oldest president to begin a first term in the White House and see his running mate Sarah Palin become the first female US vice president.

But he lost not only Ohio and Virginia but also Iowa and New Mexico, two more states won by Bush in 2004. His loss in Pennsylvania, a state won by Democrats in the last four elections, eliminated his best hope of capturing a Democratic-leaning state.

Long lines greeted voters on Election Day in many key states but no major breakdowns or irregularities were reported as at least 130 million Americans were expected to cast votes on a successor to the unpopular Bush.

The voting on Tuesday capped an extraordinary two-year campaign marked by the rapid rise from obscurity of Obama and his bitter Democratic primary battle with New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, and McCain's comeback from the political scrap heap to win the Republican nomination.

Obama hammered his favorite theme throughout the campaign, accusing McCain of representing a third term for Bush's policies and being out of touch on the economy.

McCain, whose campaign attacked Obama as a socialist and accused him of being a "pal" with terrorists, portrayed him as a tax-raising liberal.

But in a difficult political environment for Republicans, McCain struggled to separate himself from Bush. Exit polls showed three out of every four voters thought the United States was on the wrong track.

In the fight for Congress, Democrats were making big gains as well, but appeared unlikely to pick up the nine Senate seats to reach a 60-seat majority that would give them the muscle to defeat Republican procedural hurdles.

Democrats had picked up four seats early on Tuesday and knocked off two-high profile Republican incumbents -- North Carolina Sen. Elizabeth Dole, a former presidential candidate and wife of 1996 Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole, and New Hampshire Sen. John Sununu.

Democrats also gained about 25 more House of Representatives seats to give them a commanding majority in that chamber.