What Today Means

Barack Obama is the story today for editorial pages across the country. Here’s what the professional pundits are saying:  

• The excitement is feverish in Washington, writes Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian, a sense that this inauguration is special, that Obama will be magically transformed into “the embodiment of the most powerful nation on earth.”
• Obama’s rise is emblematic of the changes taking place in America, writes Conor Dougherty in the Wall Street Journal, particularly its growing diversity.

• The Los Angeles Times reminds the press to remain vigilant, even as it celebrates the new president. Obama “will sometimes fall short of his rhetoric,” it cautions. “We're braced for that, as the nation should be.”
• The crash of US Airways Flight 1549 is the perfect metaphor for Obama’s task, writes Anne Applebaum in the Washington Post. Like its heroic pilot, Obama must calmly guide this crashing plane to safety.

(More Barack Obama stories.)