I wish I could have experienced last night as an American. However, we Canadians that hoped for an Obama President, danced with joy as well. In fact people all over the globe, danced with joy and a renewed sense of hope.

Joan Juliet, thank you so much for this post. I truly appreciate the sentiments you’ve just articulated, and wholeheartedly agree that we have elected to have real, principled leadership.

Never, ever in my lifetime could I have expected the face of Jesse Jackson, bathed in tears as he stood in the crowd at Grant Park. Joan, this is not just the reverse of 9/11, it is the reverse of the last crowded demonstration in Grant Park. The horrific one in 1968. That Chinese curse, “may you live in interesting times”, brings not just the terrorists and the stock market crash, it has also brought us Barak Obama and the international joy of last night.

I live for Joan’s comments. always perfectly right on, always finding that intelligent and original way to express what i wanted to say, and saying it better. thanks.

Like you Joan, for me the past 8 years I’ve felt like I was living in an alternate reality where reason had no place and 1 + 1 absolutely did not add up to 2! Today I feel like there has been a huge shift in consciousness. We chose the higher path and nothing will ever be the same. I know there are many challenges and ups and downs ahead as well as forces trying to pull us back to the other path… but we made a conscious choice yesterday that will shine a light on all the challenges ahead and give us the ability and strength to stay on the higher path. Not only did we as a people say, “as Americans and members of the human race are going to work together for a common cause” but we have declared that rational thought is back.

God bless AMERICA and as well GOD , please bless Barack Obama and his adorable family during these next 4 years. i have to say i was one of the doubters but still i voted for him ! Why did I vote for him if i were doubting so much? I so was praying from day one. I was one of the people who voted for Bush Jr.I was hoping then as well. I wnt our precious country to go back to looking like a wonderful -dear - proud country I want our children to get smarter then they have been doing recently. then one of the things i look forward to is whites using their brains——-(i am a white person.)——-and realizing. the Black people of today were not born over in Africa where they were kidnapped from. many whites have been born in a hospital , actually the same hospital many black children were also born. they weren’t born out in the deep jungle areas of some othercountry., most likely ,nor were their parents. they are not foreigners. They are so AMERICAN !!! What I’d like to see is this nonsensical shooting and knifing and killing be stopped woul;dn’t that be wonderful? Go Obama show us what you can do for our country with us boostong you onward and forward as you do it. Please do not let us down. GOD BE WITH THIS NEW PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. of AMERICA. SHOW HIM THE WAY TO DO THIS NEW JOB OF HIS AND SHOW US OUR NEW JOBS THAT HE DOES BRING IN . IN JESUS NAME AMEN

This is hard to process. I am so grateful to you, Joan…and to you, newzie snoozie, for trying to help us give voice to it….and to everyone who tries to be articulate in the face of this astonishing event…. Joan: “A communion in the contemplation of an unbelievable new reality”….I would wear that T-shirt….. Oh, how I wish I had said that. I so dearly hope that brilliance might once again be valued as the coin of the realm…..Fortunately for all of us here, brilliance is not in short supply….Thank you. All of us……

Joan, I always savor your brilliant posts. I’ve thought of Thomas Jefferson/JFK etc like Pericles and the last 8 years of Bush Inc of like living through Pyrrhus ending the Golden Age of Greece. Impossibly painful, and as Paul Krugman called it today the time of the Monsters. I am stunned that the nightmare is over. We’ve been freed from an alternative crazy universe and it’s as if electromagnatics was rediscovered all over again, and I’m so looking forward to a JFK-ish new age of arts and smarts. Obama is truly our savior. Brilliantly strategic, in execution and brilliant communicator. O happy day.

How well you say it Joan. Restored reality after eight years of distortion and frustration. How heavy the weight on one young President’s shoulders and how ready he seems to assume it. We’ll all need to do our parts, gladly and gratefully, to make America healthy and prosperous for everyone. It’s been such a long wait for Barack Obama that I was getting very discouraged. Now I’m re-energized and so very, very proud.

Good column, Joan, but don’t forget that II-Bush has more than II months left in the Oval Office, and is trying to feverishly shove through some more lame, lame-duck deregulation policies.

thank you, joan juliet, for that post. now you can imagine the british at yorktown playing “the world turned upside down” as they handed the sword of surrender to a youngish general george washington. as for reality being restored, i haven’t caught up yet.

Joan: As Smokey Robinson sang, “I second that emotion.”

Except for the “scheming furries,” (giggle, that’s what I’ll call my kitties from now on) I agree with all who have commented here. Somewhat like you, but for different reasons, my daughter never for one second believed that any black man, never mind one named Barack Hussein Obama, could possibly win the U.S. presidential election. She turned her back. Told me, sure, ma, I’ll vote for him … but even on election night, she was determined not to pay attention. She just told me to stay calm when I heard McCain had won and that I could call her to talk anytime day or night. It was she who called me when it was announced — I guess Ms Buck you can imagine how she felt — my sweet girl’s heart finally softened and rejoiced. And I did, too, for her.