Yesterday, a wall of impossibility crumbled beneath the weight of American possibilities. Our new president, Barack Hussein Obama, was sworn in as the nation’s 44th chief executive. Tens of thousands wedged themselves into any available air pockets on the National Mall to witness the miracle of a black man, a man whose forebears came to this country in shackles, become leader of the free world.

President Obama. At last.

Seeing Obama take the oath of office marked the end of a two-year quest that began with many question marks and ended with one exclamation mark. Was he black enough? Christian enough? American enough? Loyal enough? Experienced enough?

Last November, the resounding answer was: Yes to all!

But now, as the pomp and celebrations end, the cleanup work begins. And as usual, it’s the brother who’s left holding the broom.

Obama is going to have to sweep up the shreds left by the Bush administration; the shreds of a tattered foreign policy and a tattered economy that is plunging more people into joblessness and hopelessness each day.

That’s why this may be the best time for an Obama presidency. The nation needs a community organizer right about now – because the American community is going to have to pitch in to help.

During the presidential campaign, unenlightened GOP honchos ridiculed Obama about the time he spent as a community organizer on Chicago’s South Side in 1985 after he graduated from Harvard Law School. Content to revel in stereotypes rather than truth, they painted his $10,000-a-year gig as the stuff of flighty idealism; as busywork that didn’t involve any real responsibility.
They were wrong.

One of the things that Obama did when he was hired was help organize people who had lost their jobs when the steel mills closed. It was his job to work with churches and other organizations to help them get motivated again; to push for programs and get past the hopelessness that had sunk in.

He did well.

Now, that happened a long time ago. But now, from the looks of things, the whole country is starting to feel a lot like Chicago’s South Side circa 1985.

Businesses are shutting down, choked to death by tightened credit and tight consumer spending. Unemployment is expected to hit 7 percent, and economists predict that growth will be excruciatingly slow.

And elation over Obama’s rise to the presidency will quickly turn to despair if people can’t make a living.

Sure enough, Obama has pulled together what appears to be a sharp economic team. But he’ll have his work cut out for him in trying to persuade pro-free market, anti-government Republicans to support the government spending that most economists say will be needed to spark that revered free market again.

That’s where what he learned in 1985 will come in handy today.

Obama won the presidency in large part by using those skills to reach out to average Americans via e-mail and technology. He amassed money from small donors by not overlooking their power to make a change; by showing them that government was hands-on, rather than a hands-off, thing.

And one reason that people from all walks of life flocked to Washington, D.C. to see Obama sworn in wasn’t just to witness history, but to revel in the hand they played in making it happen.

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