No real film content here, but I couldn't let this historic moment pass unremarked. Earlier this evening, when the outcome was still in doubt -- well, when it wasn't official yet -- I thought, 'For the first time in more than eight years, I'll be able to say that I'm proud to be an American.'
No one who reads this blog regularly could possibly harbor any doubts as to my political sentiments; they are at least as clear as my opinions on cinema. It has been a long nightmare, one that will not be easily or quickly dispelled. But I can see Guantanamo closing, some restoration of civil liberties and a new respect for human rights that begins in the Oval Office. I wasn't a supporter of the President-elect during the primaries, and I'm a skeptic by nature, but it occurs to me that in my lifetime -- and I'll be 55 in six more days -- we have never had a truly great President. (Damned few adequate ones, for that matter.) I've always wondered what it was like to live under Lincoln or FDR. Maybe, just maybe, we'll all get to find out.
For now, I offer a toast to absent friends and family, to those whose struggles made tonight possible, from Jesse Owens and Jackie Robinson to Dr. King and Malcolm X, to my father and his brother and all the candidates I worked for who should have seen this day -- Charles Goodell and Allard Lowenstein come to mind immediately -- and to all of you who were out there pounding the pavements or working the phone banks.
This single-malt is for you. And God bless us, everyone.
Back to business as usual tomorrow.
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