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Yesterday's Inaugural was all about happiness, the past, and the future. More than anything else, it showed that America is a great nation and Americans are a people still able to rise to the ideals set out in their Constitution.

But today and all the tomorrows that will follow will be about that day, the next day, and the future. Yesterday was euphoria. Today is war and economic chaos.

The new President is said to be a 'cool guy'; a good family man; a loving father; good husband; and a good politician with high ideals.

I appreciate all those qualities. I am glad that they reside - as I believe they do - deep in the soul and psyche of President Barack Obama. However, this world isn't peopled by people and nations with a global history of responding to or placing a high value on high ideals and good moral principles.

The singular thing that President Obama understands, and understands intimately, is what it feels like to be treated and valued as a second class citizen or as a member of an underclass. That understanding is embedded in his genes. Above all other world leaders, he, and he alone, has a uniquely clear and unequivocal understanding of the situation of the Palestinian and other oppressed groups, clans, and tribes in the world.

President Obama will see the Israeli incursion into Gaza with its disproportionate killing of Palestinians; the ongoing inter-tribal killings in various parts of Africa; the longstanding war against god knows who in Afghanistan; the wrong war that everyone's trying to end in Iraq; a still possible war between India and Pakistan. All these involve hard men, wide divisions, and deep ethnic, racial, and religious differences.

Concurrently,  there is massive and unprecedented economic chaos resulting from a shaking and shattering of what were once thought to be solid capitalist and free market principles all compounded by greed as well as stupidity.             

In all it seems to me that while America - and Bermuda - revels in the historic elevation of a nice black guy with a beautiful family; the rest of the world, and America too, is still in need of strong leadership combined with a modicum of ruthlessness.

Jimmy Carter's niceness and ability to reason didn't bring the end of strife between the Israeli and the Palestinian. Over a thousand freshly killed Palestinians attest to that. Bill Clinton's unwillingness to act more strongly in the Horn of Africa didn't improve matters there. In America, the 'Jena Six' episode and the recent killing of that unarmed black man in Oakland point to ongoing racial frictions and tensions in America.

So the world is still going about its ancient routine of being cruel and unfair. It has never stopped. However, the scale of killings and cruelty has diminished.  

Pogroms in Russia once went un-noticed and un-remarked. Hitler killed millions of Jews and hundreds of thousands of others before the world even acknowledged that he might be doing that kind of thing. The genocide in Rwanda didn't get our attention before the killings topped a full million. In Gaza we noticed and expressed some concern when we became aware that a thousand Palestinian people had been killed.

As much as I enjoyed President Barack Obama's ascension into history, this world-state stayed in my mind. Considering President Obama and the world the day after, when the euphoria begins to fade, I wonder - does he have the streak of ruthlessness that is essential in every good national leader?

Will 'President Nice Guy' be at least as hard - better, harder - than the brutally hardened hard men of the Middle East and Africa and everywhere else? Will he be able to use superpower U.S.A.'s might and persuasive powers to strike harder, send men to kill, and then still go home and do homework with Sasha and Malia? Will he have enough of that cold ruthless streak?  

If President Obama combines his compassion and his unique understanding with a clear streak of ruthlessness and a sense of purpose unchanged from that shown on that long campaign trail, he can cause massive positive change.

I hope that President Obama will make real change. Time and the ensuing world state will tell. With the euphoria fading, this is what matters.[[In-content Ad]]

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