Pensive Ramblings

BIG thanks to the crew back in the Lariat newsroom! Thanks for working late and dealing with our scattered communication. Can’t wait to see the PDF!

Okay, now for a brief reflection.

If I could describe today in one word, it would be: I don’t know.

As in, I don’t know how to describe today in one word. There were too many unfamiliar emotions and unusual experiences--such as feeling like an ant. Being nearly 5’11”, that’s a comparison I don’t typically make. But when you’re treading along as one among a million at the bottom of an enormous hill with all the higher-ups looking down, it starts to make sense. You realize there are a lot of people in this world, and that you are absolutely nobody.

When a million people brave the biting winds and chilling air for hours and hours to catch a glimpse of you from a mile away, then you are somebody. You’re actually way more than somebody at the point. You’re a person with a unique responsibility to remember that almost an entire world is counting on your decisions. And the swearing-in ceremony today, with its grand prestige and massiveness, certainly exemplified such a task.

But there also were some other important people on that stage—Congressmen and women and Supreme Court justices. They too hold great power and play instrumental roles in our government. They too should bear the burden of the bad times and the praise of the good times. And I couldn’t help but think that while Obama does have some big issues to deal with soon, so do they.

We often wonder how Obama will handle this or how he will do that, but there’s other people in the cast of this sitcom. President Bush had sub-freezing approval ratings this year, but during the summer, the approval ratings of Congress hovered around 10 percent, which wasn’t nearly reported as much as the president’s dismal standing. While it’s much easier to focus on one person than a body of legislators, we should nonetheless avoid being out of touch with what the rest of government is doing—both the good and bad.

Apologies for digressing from an ant metaphor to an opinion. Perhaps my brain is still thawing.

- Ashley