Drowning Our Sorrows, Lifting a Glass to Obama

By Patricia Williams, The Nation. Posted January 20, 2009.

This is only a short list--it doesn't even touch on the things we were spared but that might have happened: Bush's (failed) nomination of Bernard Kerik to head Homeland Security; the privatization of Social Security; the elevation of Alberto Gonzales and Robert Bork to the Supreme Court; a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

"Honestly," says my friend, "who needs booze? Just reading the list, you could get drunk and have a killer hangover." I do suppose we'll all sober up after inauguration day. But I'm going to sneak a look at the list every now and then, just to make sure I don't take anything for granted. However challenging the future we face, an Obama administration represents real change.

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Patricia J. Williams, a professor of law at Columbia University and a member of the State Bar of California, writes The Nation column "Diary of a Mad Law Professor." Her books include The Rooster's Egg (1995), Seeing a Color-Blind Future: The Paradox of Race (1997) and, most recently, Open House: On Family Food, Friends, Piano Lessons and The Search for a Room of My Own (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2004.)

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