Every president to hold office has espoused some version of Americanism - the truths that we hold self-evident, even when those truths are not always in evidence. But for all their grand rhetoric and mostly good deeds, none was able to seal the deal on the trifecta of equality, plurality and socioeconomic ascendancy. Obama has.

America is the greatest nation ever founded. The ideals are the greatest ever espoused in human history and we just need the country to live up to them. But what I worry about are the 1 million black men in the prison system.