Government that works

There were a lot of reasons that a large proportion of the nation came together yesterday to celebrate President Obama's (I love that!) inauguration, not least that some 70+ percent think his predecessor ran the country into the ground. But Obama said an interesting thing in his speech, that what matters is not whether government is too big or too small, but whether it works.

Contrary to the "government is the problem" folks, I have always thought that democratic government is actually one of the most remarkable creations of humankind.  It runs counter to all the most powerful human impulses, both those that drive us to tell others what to do and those that lead us to resist whatever anyone else tells us to do.  The second sort tends to be more dominant for me, so I can't go along with the classic liberal (rules, regulations, mandates) solution to every problem even though I agree with the liberal goals. 

It is refreshing to have a president who believes his job is to make life better for all Americans by whatever means rather than to advance one particular ideology. That will get him in all kinds of trouble and it remains to be seen whether it is even possible to govern from that position, but thanks for giving it a try. It is change we can believe in, even if it turns out to be a change we can't quite live up to.