The Day Before

It's a gorgeous day here.  The sun is out, it's sort of warm.  People are taking the day off for Martin Luther King Day.  It's the day before the quadrennial American event: inauguration of a president.  

Tomorrow, a candidate who based his campaign on hope and change is sworn in.  It is America's first African-American president (however, not our first from Harvard a fact we Yalie's are slightly grumpy about).  At noon eastern standard time we will witness history.

I have talked a lot about the unimaginably hard problems that need immediate attention.  In fact, it seems Obama and Bush sliced up some territory after the election, with Obama taking on the economy and Bush still trying to wrangle international issues such as the war in Gaza.  But tomorrow, it all falls upon President Obama's shoulders.

In Washington, D.C. and many cities across the nation, people will be indulging in celebrations.  Hollywood stars and "very important people" are in DC for the see-and-be-seen events beginning on Sunday.  

But the real work has already begun.  Aside from the carefully scripted trips to Arlington National Cemetery, Walter Reed Army Hospital, painting a children's homeless shelter, the work of a president in jawboning banks to open up credit from money they received under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to cajoling Congressmen to forgo their pet projects and throw their support behind more long term economic stimulus, is difficult.  It is work that we will not see but hopefully will begin to understand the impacts.  Symbolic acts are great set-ups for a re-election that is essentially two years from now, but we really need more than symbolic acts.  

Tomorrow will be history.  Wednesday will  be work.