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“Our Time For Change Has Come.”

-President-elect Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., Nov. 4, 2008

Ever since the United States elected a “kick-ass black ninja” president two weeks ago, the next question being asked by everyone from me to Rachel Maddow is:  why do we have to wait until next year for him to be president?  I like saying President-Elect Barack Obama, but it does become a mouthful.  And then the guy who’s still in the job, “the decider” who’s still saying that “fundamentally free markets work”, is working to make the mess even bigger, dig the hole even deeper, deregulate even more in his last two months in office.

So why do we have to wait?  Originally, electors from the various states were given four months to cast their ballots for president.  The 20thamendment to the Constitution changed the date from March 4 to noon on January 20th, giving us the current state of affairs.  None of those factors, though, took into account the internet or the pace of the world today.  It doesn’t take four months or two months to get all those votes in, both popular and electoral.  All that’s happening is the lame duck is swimming in circles, not getting anywhere, making things worse.

Don't let the doorknob hit you . . .

And whether he wants to or not, President-elect Barack Obama is already being courted and touted as the leader of the United States.  Even our declared enemies and malcontents from South Korea to Iran to Russia are ready to bypass and be done with George Bush.  I know that thinking Republicans, Democrats, most independents and my 2nd and 3rd grader are all done with him.  We’re watching the pages on the calendar turn with “the same anticipation as we watch the clock hit four p.m. on a Friday afternoon.”

I want to travel forward in time right now.  Or I want dates to get switched right quick.  We elected Barack Obama to lead our country.  He should be the man sitting at the table with the G20 figuring out how to get us out of this economic mess; he should be guiding the new Secretary of the Treasury (because Henry Paulson has got to go, too!) to disperse the $700 billion in a way that will actually help citizens and not line pockets; he should be commanding our military to engage in Afghanistan and disengage in Iraq, and to get Osama bin Laden; he should be the one putting people back to work with public works projects that will make us energy independent and get our economy functioning again.

I voted on November 4th to hire Barack Obama as President of the United States.  He should be President on November 5th.  Time is traveling way to slowly for me.

And that’s not the only thing it’s about time for.

Two-hundred and twenty years.

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Cross posted on Spreading the Word on November 16, 2008.