I've always been proud to be an American and have always felt hope cross the country.

Linda

It's been quite a morning, and very emotional.

Awesome!

New here but I'd just like to applaud Linda and say that I too have ALWAYS been proud to be an American.

What a day! So exciting, happy and positive. A good day for all!

Sooey

Someone else here who has ALWAYS been happy and proud to be an American.

What a memorable day! I kept my son home from school to watch it because his school didn't have plans to watch it! They showed kids in Indonesia at school at midnight just to watch it! It is just a huge deal to me, having grown up in the segregated south. I never thought I would live to see the day, but am so glad I have!

I, too, have always been proud to be an American! Today is an amazing day for me and I am hopeful that we will see some changes that will benefit all of us. Bettye/AZ

What a wonderful speech. Proud to be an American today and always!!

I was proud to be an American today. It is about time we had liberty and justice for ALL.
What a wonderful day and a wonderful speech.

I'm with mscippy and the others - I have always loved and been proud of my country and felt hope for her future. God bless the USA. Molly

I too have always been proud to be an American, but today that pride is bursting. What an emotional day...

Finally....!

babs77, you have hit the nail on its head! We should all be bursting with extra pride today!

Hope.

ML

Molly I agree, God bless the USA!! Charlene

The people who are saying the are proud to be American today never said they are not proud always to be American. I submit that they infer that they are ESPECIALLY proud today. Lighten up, folks.

Bigbaby, good for you, keeping your son home. I cannot imagine why a school would not make it available for kids to view. I work at an elem. school, and the principal encouraged each classroom teacher to have it on the TV.

I'm hopeful that things will turn around and the depression of the recent debacle will end. I hope people give the guy a chance to be judged fairly, but I'm already getting silly emails with more fiction and garbage. Guess we'll always be a divided nation. I just hope that the group who opposes for the sake of opposing grows smaller. I'm also hoping that we can restore some faith and integrity to the White House. Then hopefully it can expand to restoring trust, integrity and friendship throughout the world. Can one man do that? I don't think so. I think it'll take a vast majority of the country.

I didn't see the inaguration - was working. But I'm watching some of the parade. Had no intention to watch any of it actually, but if nothing else it was interesting to see the new limo! LOL Is it me, or does the styling of that new limo look rather "British"?

A new year. A new President. Will it mean potentially the return of "hope"?

I am always proud to be an American but honestly not always proud of our leaders. And definitely not always hopeful. Today I am bursting, as Babs said. The world is always watching us and today I think they saw a very good, strong and positive side of America and Americans. So yeah, today I am especially proud to be an American.

I absolutely loved Rev. Lowry's prayer. Such a neat day and the Obama Girls looked adorable.

I bet the Pres. & VP and Wives and Families are exhausted.

I've been glued to the TV.

Regarding "hope" that has been such a part of this election, are we using the right word?

IMO, "hope" is wishing something will happen. Having "faith" is believing that it will. Assuming that for the moment, would it be fair to say that you have more faith in positive change now then you've had previously?

For example, I HOPE I win the lottery, but I have no FAITH that I will.

Am I making sense?

I'm so glad I'm not alone! After reading a thread earlier this week, I was afraid I'd be the only one watching with a hanky.

God bless America.

Hope vs Faith. Interesting question and a valid one too.
Partly it's just semantics because I think we know what we mean, but maybe faith is a better term. For me, I've not had any faith in the government for a while and my level of hope was more along the lines of "I hope I don't lose my house this year" and "I hope we can survive our international entanglements". Hope now is brighter and bigger. I have faith that our new president sees a world the way I want to see it and I have faith that he'll work toward that vision. I pray that he'll make it happen.

High Hopes!

I agree with so many others. I have always been proud to be an American, but not always proud of our leaders (sometimes yes sometimes no) and not always proud of everything that we as a nation have done.

I am proud that we have elected our first President of African American heritage. It's about time. I think Barack Obama is a good man who will do his best to bring hope and prosperity back to our country.

I also know that the President isn't the only one involved in that process. He has to have backing. Backing from other elected officials and from the American public.

He's never been President before, so regardless of his political experience, he has a steep learning curve ahead of him. In my limited experience, I guess I'd say that it's like parenting in a way. No matter how much you've baby-sat, you've never been a parent until you actually have the job. You have to learn on the job and you will make mistakes. Hopefully, you'll do more things right than wrong.

I'm very, very hopeful and very, very proud!

It's been just wonderful, all day long. My job has hooked us all up to streaming video we can access from our computers if we want, and I've had it up on one monitor while working on another monitor. It's been just amazing.

So sorry about Ted Kennedy, I hope he's going to be all right.

I just cannot imagine all the people that have waited outside in the c-c-c-cold for hours and hours, just to catch a glimpse as they drive by, or to wave when they got out and walked. It's just amazing. (I know, I said that already ... but it is!)

I love this country, and I love the people who make it possible for us to be the way we are. I haven't always been PROUD of our leaders, there have been bad decisions made by several different presidents, from both parties! But I do believe that each one of them TRIED to do a good job. And that's important.

I pray for Mr. Obama, that the people he has chosen to surround him are truthful and honest, that they're of good moral character and will put aside personal agendas to guide him toward decisions that will be for the best of the country.

And yes ... OH YES ... I am busting my buttons with pride to be an American right now. My boss is originally from VietNam, and he was telling me that Only in America could this happen ... a minority ... peacefully assuming a position of such power, leading the best country in the world. He was grinning from ear to ear and so was I.

Definitions of "Faith":

religion: a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny; "he lost his faith but not his morality"
complete confidence in a person or plan etc; "he cherished the faith of a good woman"; "the doctor-patient relationship is based on trust"
religion: an institution to express belief in a divine power; "he was raised in the Baptist religion"; "a member of his own faith contradicted him"
loyalty or allegiance to a cause or a person; "keep the faith"; "they broke faith with their investors"

Do I have "complete confidence" and/or "loyalty or allegiance"? Well let's just say I hope we can all have faith in a brighter future soon. I'm giving the guy a chance.

I have always loved my country and felt unfairly lucky to have been born an American -- especially after touring in other countries, even other First World countries.

I have been ashamed of our leadership for the last eight years, and of my own and other citizens' docile acceptance of it. I've been ashamed at some actions farther in the past, too, but I was never *afraid* to speak out as I have been under Bush and his neocons. (I will view average Germans' failure to stand against Hitler with more compassion in the future.)

Today I feel like flying my Stars and Stripes again. I hope we will give the new President and Congress a chance. It's not going to be a quick fix -- probably two years minimum before we see real change.

As a lifelong resident of Cook County, I have my qualms. You don't get political power without 'help'. I am hoping for the best, not only from the White House, but from every elected representative --- and from WE the PEOPLE who elect them (or throw them out).

I've always been proud of my country. I hope Obama is successful, but do not think he is going to change my life much at all. That is up to me.

I have never, ever, been afraid to speak out for or against our leaders, local or national. I'm trying to be careful here because I don't want this to become a political debate on this forum.

I have given every leader an honest opportunity to be all they say they are going to be. That usually falls short and it's often due to rules and laws that must be followed. I understand that.
Bush had his good points and his bad points. The past few years he spent taxpayers money like the party I could not vote for because of their lack of fiscal responsibility. I am glad he was the person in office when our country was attacked. I cannot imagine what it would have been like if the other person was in office.

I think it was too bad that conservatives really had no one running for president back in November. There was a little difference between the two candidates, but not that much when you get down to the nitty gritty. The difference in their views on abortion is what me decide to choose my candidate.

I am proud to know that an African American can be elected. I can think of some that I would gladly have voted for in years past, but they were more conservative than our present leader and didn't lead some people to believe that he would make sure their mortgages would be paid and give other false hopes.

cynic, it does have a somewhat "British" look to it, doesn't it? However all modern-day presidential limouisine's have been customized Cadillacs.

Here is a link that might be useful: presidential limousine

Very well said Mscsippy. I agree 100%. The freedom America offers all to speak their mind is priceless and no one should hesitate to do so. Molly

I couldn't watch any of it without tearing up.
I feels good to be united, and proud.
America, how lucky I am to live here.
A very magical day.

Trin

I have always been proud to be an American and proud to have served my country in the United States Air Force

I'm not American,but have to say that my hope has been restored in the American Government today.It hasn't been an easy year for all of us,and there's a lot to be done,but I found today very emotional!
Now if we could just get the stuffed shirts in our Canadian government to stop bickering long enough to accomplish something....sigh......

What a great day for Americans and for the World. Peace is at hand.

Anne

Now that all the rah, rah hoopla is over, ask me in a year.

I had a tissue in my hand the whole time. I'm happy to see someone of color in the White House. I personally got emails from "friends", so-called Christians, and my own dyed-in-the-wool Southern Baptist Republican father, who sent "scare" emails regarding Obama. I never responded and always deleted them. That's the interesting thing about opinions -everyone has one! I am not sure I have ever been prouder to be an American than today.

After years living here in the US, I became an American Citizen October 1996. You can count me as a proud American too, at least, for the last 12 years and three month!

Moni

I was proud before today and I am still proud
the song by God Bless The USA by Lee Greenwood is my personal anthem

I'm with koda04 & also with lindakathy. I think that everyone, no matter your political beliefs, has high hopes for every president when they first go into office. Only time will tell how each turns out. I think that all presidents do some good things & also make some mistakes. They are human, so that's only to be expected. I certainly wish him the best. He has a lot of challenges to face.

Minnie tx, thank you for your service to our country.

Another ditto to what Mscsippy said. I wasn't too proud of my "fellow Americans" when they boo'ed Bush. No matter whether or not you liked him, that was extremely disrespectful to the office.

I also wasn't proud of "Americans" who threw down the little flags that were passed out yesterday and trampled them into the dust along with the other mountains of trash. You would have thought that since it was a historic moment, they would have wanted to save them as a souvenir.

I didn't find amusement in Rev. Lowry's little prayer...well, except to say, if a white person had said something like that, they would have been called a racist.
Oh...but, I forgot. Only white people are racists.

God Bless you, Marilyn C for daring to speak the truth!