Gary Kamiya is among my favorite writers. Here is a portion of his special inaugural eve story:
Hawaii, for me, will always be the place where I not only survived, but partied in paradise while doing it. I'm still here, and now Obama -- a native son, no less! -- is president. So when Obama takes the oath in the frozen capital city on the opposite end of the country, I will be celebrating twice. And praying that just as I was healed, a sea change will come upon America like a great wave, washing away the last eight years.
Sea changes must go beyond politics. Things rich and strange are not conjured solely out of tax policy and health plans. Beginnings are a time for generosity, for personal dedication. Forty-seven years ago, a young president touched the hearts of his countrymen when he said at his inauguration, "Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country." Today, another young president is calling for the same selfless commitment.
But as we watch the exit of the most destructive presidency in American history, it isn't easy to feel generous. Those of us who have watched in horror as George W. Bush and his accomplices wreaked havoc are torn today between joy and anger, the desire to turn the page and the need to see reality acknowledged and justice done.
I cannot forgive Bush for what he did. With reckless arrogance and blind stupidity, he trashed the country I grew up in and love. He has the blood of hundreds of thousands of people on his hands. He exalted greed and selfishness. He spied, tortured and kidnapped. He brought shame to our nation's name.
There must be a reckoning for such grave acts. Unless we acknowledge the grievous damage Bush did -- to the environment, to the economy, to Iraq and the Middle East, to our cherished tradition of civil liberties, to a world that desperately needed a wise and compassionate America -- we will leave ourselves open to making the same mistakes again. Unless we hold those who committed crimes accountable, we will degrade the rule of law, our highest values and morality itself. To free ourselves of the cancer that was the Bush years, we must see it clearly and cut it out.
But clinging to anger, however righteous, eventually corrodes one's soul. You become the thing you hate. You can't get to where you want to go if you are forever looking backward. Like millions of Americans, I have been living with anger and bitterness for much too long. In his second inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln asked Americans to finish their great appointed task "with malice towards none, with charity for all." Read it all.
