Obama Now Assumes The Presidency

Washington: Faced with a multitude estimated to be in the two millions, people in downtown Washington, amid the biggest security measures ever seen in an opening ceremony and with the world’s hope of change in the U.S. administration, Barack Obama now assumes the presidency of the United States.

An unprecedented economic crisis, the U.S. engaged in two wars and an endless conflict in the Middle East: Barack Obama will need all his charisma to build trust in the government after eight years of George Bush, but does not have a magic wand.

Glorified with an extraordinary fervor, which also accompanied him on Saturday along a journey by train from Philadelphia (East Pennsylvania) to Washington, the impending 44th U.S. president knows that he has no right to disappoint his followers.

The First Black President.

“This better be good,” said his daughter, Malia, 10, referring to the inaugural speech that Barack Obama delivered today (17H00 GMT) on the balcony of the Capitol, according to a story published by a local newspaper.

Obama counts on his speech for the Americans in order to to regain confidence after the dark episodes of the Bush era: the attacks of September 11, 2001, the military setbacks in Iraq and Afghanistan and the economic crisis.

The need for good news is so great that the pilot of the plane that had to do an emergency landing Thursday on the Hudson River in New York, saving the lives of all passengers and crew, has become a national hero. And won a couple of phone calls from both Bush and Obama.

In anticipation of entering the Oval Office, Barack Obama never tires of reminding his compatriots of the gravity of the situation, warning that you can not correct all wrongs with a magic wand despite any campaign promises.

“We know there is work to do. We know that the U.S. is at a crossroads: a country at war, a faltering economy, an American dream that seems to evaporate,” he said at a stop by his train in Wilmington (east Delaware).

In his inaugural speech, the most important of his career, “Obama is like a tightrope,” said political scientist Buddy Howell of Denison University. “We must be realistic and remember that we are in difficult times, but this will have to be contrasted with the spirit of optimism.”

The interested party already began to follow this advice earlier this month, stating: “The road will be long. The cost will be tough. We may not succeed in a year or even during a presidential term, but I have never been so full of hope that we will succeed. “

“It’s likely that things will get worse before improving,” he also warned, as if to convince Congress to vote as quickly as possible to their giant economic rescue plan of 825 billion dollars.

At the international level, Obama also generates high expectations. By the end of December, Vice-President-elect Joe Biden was said to be “disturbed” by the hopes from abroad that have been deposited on him.

David Mendell, author of Obama’s biography, From Promise to Power, said that the future president could “have an effect in Muslim countries where people hate America.”

Historical Asuncion

More than three-quarters of Americans believe the inauguration of Obama as president is one of the most important events in the country’s history, according to a survey by the Gallup institute. Another CNN poll shows that over two thirds of African Americans believe that “the dream” of Martin Luther King Jr. is being fulfilled after 45 years.