Props for the Birthday Boy.

A hundred plus hunger strikers up in peaceful arms demonstrating about the lack of security for civilian Iraqis and the founder of Bread for Peace standing a few meters away in a light straw hat explaining the work of his organization to passers by and petitioning for support.

The weather is lovely. Warm and slightly cloudy - a nice break from the heat and humidity that characterizes Washington in the summer, a season lasting pretty much from April to November in this city, at least by Danish standards.

The location is Lafayette Park, the park overlooking the White House, and I have merrily positioned myself on a bench with an old classic.

The book is Invisible Man, the 1952 novel by Ralph Ellison, dealing with a young black man from the Jim Crow south and his journey to Harlem, New York, where he (as far as I've come) is rising to oratory prominence and popularity in the a movement for the socially opressed.

It's hard not to draw the obvious longer line to the current inhabitor of the shining white pompous building in front of me and ponder the significance of his presence there. Not just the racial bounderies that broke down but the academic revolution it denoted, in which it is suddenly cool again to be smart and led by sense.

We were all so godly excited on the night of November 4, in this city that went 93% for Obama. On that night, when after a two year long parade of one bad succesor solution after the other, we finally knew that we would be breathing more easily in the years to come. Not because the new boss would be a bandaid for the rough patch we're in but because his being there meant that the Western world would finally be led by logic, clought and thoughtfulness.

I am still excited for the new guy.

I am aware that his job is tough, that the road is long and bumpy toward healthcare reform that's worth anything and that the situation is that we're basically screwed in every way regardless of the awesomeness of the new President.

But he's doing the best he can, with abilities that far surpasses the past eight years and has managed to inspire people who were done with politicians.

Yup, I am still excited. Though - I don't pride myself on accidentally thinking as I walked past, "I wonder what time he or the girls walk Bo."

That's where the enthusiasm americornifies. Right there...