Congratulations, America!

As a liberal libertarian, I am very happy with Obama's victory. He is a smart man who probably will do an excellent job as US presidents go.

He will probably stick to the center-center-left of mainstream American politics - which would put him at the center-right of International politics. Anything is a welcome change from Bush's extreme right policies.

The election of a black man president indicates that a sufficiently well educated and prosperous society can indeed transcend racial bigotry, by and large. Now I know for sure that India will reach this state in a few decades - and I am glad.

Mr Obama's stand on the Iraq war is that it is a waste of American lives and resources. I sincerely hope that this is mere political posturing - and that he deems the damage to 1 million + Iraqi lives a shame of equal or greater magnitude than the damage to 5000 odd coalition troop lives (just by mere magnitude) . I hope he believes in his heart that all humans are fundamentally equal - even if they are not potential voters.

Mr Obama wants to do the sensible thing. Sit down and talk to Admedinijad, Chavez and the like. Of course they're thugs. (The same applies to Bush in many people's eyes all around the world)
But talking to thugs never hurt anybody - especially when there's nothing to lose and peace to gain.

Prof. Noam Chomsky's view is that Obama "is the lesser of the evils". I hope that Prof. Chomsky is being pessimistic. But looking at Clinton's Wag-The-Dog-esque bombing of a pharmaceutical plant (for instance) in Sudan killing innumerable people directly and indirectly (and still being referred to as a centrist president) perhaps justifies Prof. Chomsky's assertion that one ought not have illusions about Obama.