A guiding principle among folks of Republican ilk is that the faults of these United States of America are vastly overblown and that the nation’s lefty-liberal critics are largely out to lunch.

It took a smart, capable half-white liberal black guy with a funny name and a foreign dad — and the worst Republican administration in a century — to prove them right. Republicans lost the election but won the argument about America’s basic goodness.

I have no illusions about Barack Obama changing the world. He won’t. The world’s too big and too complicated. It’s more important what he represents: delivering on the promise of 1776, that we’re all created equal and that people’s hopes will not be fenced in by royalty, tradition, prejudice or fear.

My main regret of the last eight years is how venal, dishonest and incompetent leaders have exploited straightforward virtues like faith, thrift and patriotism to further their own ideas at the expense of the country. There was never any need to invade Iraq. New Orleans was left to rot because the city had no Republican voters; the Crash of ’08 was Wall Street’s Katrina. After all this can we really believe they did all they could to prevent 9/11?

Obama executed a brilliant campaign while McCain ran his like Bush ran the country for the last eight years.

I’m proud to see the nation’s reply.

(Well, sign me up for the Bush team: I thought I was posting this on my home page… sorry if you’re all getting fed up with the politics, we’ll get back to hiking pretty soon).