America in shock.

I know we're all looking forward to the inauguration. We're even more anxious to finally be able to usher in "The End of an Error."

The Daily Brief in today's Huffington Post includes this article by Nathan Gardels. It's pretty sobering.

You can read it all here.

Here's a little something to whet your appetite:

The year 2008 is thus likely to go down in American history as an even more pivotal one than 2001, when the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred, because the life of the average American is going to be shaped far more by the consequences. We're not talking about the inconvenience of lining up to go through metal detectors at the airport. We're talking about the transformation of the American model itself. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz was not exaggerating when he quipped to me earlier this year that "the fall of Wall Street is to market fundamentalism what the fall of the Berlin Wall was to communism." Just like that, we're in a different era.

In this circumstance, Barack Obama will not be judged by the color of his skin, or even the content of his character. He will be judged by the quality of his leadership and the success of his policies in staving off depression and putting America back on the path to prosperity.

Note: Yes, I wrote 'whet' your appetite. That's different from 'wet your whistle.'

Read about it here.