Obamarama

Today's the day.

Three hours from now, Barack Obama will be sworn in as president No. 44 amid much celebration, fanfare and tears shed of joy. Meanwhile, the 43rd president will quietly slip away into the shadows, remembered almost exclusively as the punch-line to a Daily Show-esque political barb.

Watching the events this weekend, one can't help but be in awe of the absolute scale of this occasion. Not in some sort of metaphorical way, but in an actual way; the sheer volume of people in washington; the ridiculous amount of media coverage. Until this year, have you ever heard of people getting together and taking a day off work to have a presidential inauguration party? Were there t-shirts being sold at your street corner when Bill Clinton took the office?

It's unbelievable how much this man is loved. He is John Lennon, Michael Jordan, the Pope and the Dalai Lama all rolled into one.

It, frankly, is frightening. The burden of expectation on this man to change the world is crushing. That he handles it with such grace is either a result of supreme ignorance, or yet another example of what makes him perhaps like no individual who has ever gone before him.

And I suspect he is not an ignorant man.

Whatever happens next, however long this honeymoon lasts, today's moment is something special. Before it is tainted by reality, before it is brought back down to earth by bills piling up and people losing their jobs. By soldiers dying in wars and children wasting away to famine.

I have never, ever seen one man embody the hope of a planet like the man who is assuming power of the world's most powerful nation today.

Here's hoping it all works out.