The Very American Way to Elect its First President of Color!

Only Satan would have been worse than the Bush regime. Therefore it could be argued that the new administration in the USA could never be worse than the one which divorced the hearts and minds of Americans from their brothers in the international community, which appalled the rest of the world with shock and awe tactics that included concentration camps, torture, mass murder and utter disrespect for international law. Yet in choosing Obama, the people of America have opted to come back into the international fold.

When the news echoed across Chicago's Grant Park that Barack ObamaBarack Obama had, indeed, become the first African-American president of the United States of America, a visible wave of emotion swept across the thousands who had gathered. One African-American woman, standing alone at the edge of the crowd, began sobbing silently and uncontrollably. Others were far more voluble, screaming with joy, chanting Obama's name and shouting "Yes we Can" as the results rolled across the giant television screens erected in the park. It is extraordinary to think that a nation has been wracked with racial turmoil for so much of its bloody history has now elected - and by a huge margin - its first president of colour.

But it is also very American.