“Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them but I can look up and see their beauty and try to follow them.”

So wrote Louisa May Alcott.

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Today is the first full day of the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama, and millions of people in this country and around the world are peering far into the horizon, hoping that aspirations for their county and themselves can be reached. You could power the state of Texas with the good-will energy that has swept the country. (Though maybe that’s not a good metaphor since Texas is still very much a red state.)

I hope people realize that President Obama is but a man, and the world won’t change in an instant. You see that today is like any other day, yes? (Although we are still emotionally hung over from yesterday’s historic event.)

Give him a chance. Change takes time. Republicans can’t be counted on to jump on board with all of Obama’s plans — though I sense relief that he hasn’t, you know, made Bill Ayres Secretary of Defense, or some equally crazy appointment that the right-wing blogs were predicting.

I’m more worried about the Democrats and their mumbling about taking members of the Bush administration — perhaps even the ex-president himself — to legal task for eight years of ineptitude and possibly worse. Please! Nancy Pelosi, buy a clue. When your president talks about turning the page, he doesn’t mean to have the country and media embroiled and obsessed with Bush and company for ages ahead.

I don’t want to see or hear or concern myself with anything Bush from now on. Leave them all to heaven. 

Or … wherever.

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One more point. There’s lots of talk over the airwaves about how the election of Barack Obama to the highest office in the land proves “anybody can become president.” OK, it’s a big push forward, no doubt about it. But let’s wait on that sweeping judgment until there is a Jewish president, an atheist president, a gay president, an unmarried (modern-day) president, an Asian president, a Latino president, a Muslim president. And folks, let’s not forget — a woman president!

Oh, and I just love the praise we’re getting from abroad on America’s big step forward. I’ll take all that with a grain of salt until Britain, France, Italy, etc., elect a person of African descent to lead them.

Click here on this text to read my New York Post column.