Four More Years

Four years ago the American people proved to the worlkd that their country was no longer racist - by electing its first ever black President, Barack Obama.

True there are still racial tensions and racial incidents - but compared to where the United States stood 50 years ago the transformation has been truly remarkable.

Four years on America faces a quite different challenge which is probably even more daunting - the need to re-energise its failing economy and to tackle the problems that allowed the American economy to collapse in the first place. 

For the moment all the talk is of a bi-partisan approach - one that will allow Democrats and Republicans to put aside their political differences and work together in the national interest.

Yet on the evidence of the past four years that is unlikely to happen - without the kind of leadership that has been missing from the American body politic up until now.

The way of modern politics is to 'monster' your political opponents at every turn - to attack their integrity and honesty - which makes politicians cynical and the voters very weary of the respective party machines.

So it will be interesting to see how things work out for President Obama second time round - I wish him well.