By Denis Campbell

The Bush countdown calendar’s down to its last sheet. 385 pages gone. It’s been almost 2-years since that freezing day Obama announced his candidacy on the Illinois Statehouse steps. We are more than halfway through a positively giddy festival of a celebration weekend. Thousands are milling about the Washington DC Mall just wanting to be a part of it all. And in about 24-hours, Barack Obama will stand on the Capitol steps and recite the 34-word Presidential oath of office.

Russia’s Putin, South Korea’s Lee, Italy’s Berlusconi and Georgia’s Saakashvili have all phoned in their goodbyes to President Bush who arrived on the White House lawn moments ago from his last weekend trip to Camp David. Today will be spent saying farewell to White House staff and getting ready to write “THE” letter to Barack Obama. Each White House senior staff member pens a letter to their successor and leaves it in the now empty desk top drawer. The letters contents are always private and never revealed by the outgoing President. Indeed the Press Secretary’s is left in a flak jacket, originally given to Ford’s Ron Nessen and handed down ever since, stuffed with notes from one Press Secretary to another.

Those who voted for John McCain while not flocking to Obama are excited by the history of the event even if they disagree with his political ideology. That’s fair. What’s worrisome is the continually growing noisy group of wing-nuts that are positively frightening in their bile and hatred. You know them on scary 1^st sight or, rather, listen. They were the ones attending Sarah Palin and John McCain rallies yelling: “terrorist,” “Muslim” and “Kill Him.”

The woman John McCain had to wrestle the microphone away from at a late campaign rally insisting, “I don’t trust him, he’s a, he’s a Muslim” was the moment that even McCain realised the election was lost. The truly weary look on his face of “Ohmigod, this woman is the base of my support,” was priceless. Will they stop sending their hate and error filled hate e-mails or do Secret Service need to constantly be on the lookout for these survivalist, rapture awaiting rednecks?

The only network on this side of the Atlantic providing wire-to-wire coverage since Saturday morning is the bastion of the conservative right wing Fox News Network. Although my ears are bleeding by the ideologues already blaming Obama before he even takes office for the mess Bush leaves behind, not even they can ruin this historic moment. Tomorrow I will be on many media outlets, but the toughest yet most important? … speaking to an assembly of Welsh School kids at (and not embarrassing them too much) my kids’ school: St. Brides Major Church in Wales Primary School, to share with them the historic significance of this event.

In Chicago’s Grant Park President Elect Barack Obama said in his victory speech: “As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of our affection.”

So fasten your seatbelts, naaah this time forget the belts, just get up and dance.

We all will be sober and sombre again on Wednesday.