The last time I saw Ted Kennedy was a generation after my first meeting, at the Senate subway below the Capitol on Obama's Inauguration Day. He was his usual gregarious and gracious self - with beaming smile and booming voice wishing my husband and me good luck with our pregnancy and expressing his excitement about the new president.

President Obama called for a 'we' nation in his Inauguration Address. Art convenes. It is not just inspirational. It is aspirational. It pricks the walls of our compartmentalized minds, opens our hearts and makes us brave. And that's what we need most in our country today.

Right before the Bush inauguration, many women were greatly reassured when Laura said of Roe v. Wade on the 'Today' show, 'No, I don't think it should be overturned.' Three days later, her husband reimposed the 'global gag rule' on groups abroad that receive U.S. funding for family planning.

President Obama called for a 'we' nation in his Inauguration Address. Art convenes. It is not just inspirational. It is aspirational. It pricks the walls of our compartmentalized minds opens our hearts and makes us brave. And that's what we need most in our country today.

No doubt the White House thinks the American people know Obama's story. But since the Inauguration we've seen only the president's present: his perfect family his Ivy League elegance his effortless mastery of complex issues. We never see him sweat. And we forget that he ever had to struggle.

Few expected very much of Franklin Roosevelt on Inauguration Day in 1933. Like Barack Obama seventy-six years later he was succeeding a failed Republican president and Americans had voted for change. What that change might be Roosevelt never clearly said probably because he himself didn't know.