Congratulations, Mr. President

“Barack Obama, 44th president of the United States: Like so many millions of Americans, we savor the phrase.” So begins the Washington Post’s gleeful editorial this morning, ushering in a “new political era,” under a president who seems ready for the monumental tasks before him. The New York Times is no less optimistic, dutifully reciting Obama’s agenda, after pausing to relish the basic miracle that “an American with the name Barack Hussein Obama” has been elected president.

Indeed, Obama’s victory reveals “how far the nation has traveled,” observes the Chicago Tribune, celebrating its city’s first president. Obama represents a victory for both civil rights and civility, running a campaign that stubbornly focused on unity. Even the Wall Street Journal offers “hearty congratulations” to Obama, though his victory is as much a repudiation of Republicans as anything else. (More Election 2008 stories.)