Jim Vickrey, Special to the Advertiser Published 12:56 a.m. CT Nov. 25, 2020

Jim Vickrey writes from his native Montgomery, where he resides after a nearly fifty year-long career as a college professor, lawyer, and university president. He is Professor Emeritus at Troy University.(Photo: Mickey Welsh / Advertiser)

Did you hear it? I did.

As President-elect Joe Biden announced the latest round of new leaders in his administration, I heard a collective sigh of relief in our house and in houses around the country at the very least in the homes of more than 80,000,000 Americans who voted for just this kind of change.

But, I suspect, many millions of other Americans are also welcoming the low-key sort of focused and experienced leadership we are being introduced to. And did you notice? The announcements were not about the soon-to-be-president; they were about the qualifications of the individuals and of their desire to "serve others" in our land and to make America a lamp of positive world leadership ... again. That is how we keep America great.

For at least the next four years, beginning January 20, 2021, we won't have to wonder what the next outrageous tweet from the WH will say ... what American laws and traditions are being violated ... what norms of decent human behavior might be trashed before nightfall ... what long-standing U.S. policies (e.g., environmental regs) are being ignored and/or wiped off the books.No, we are now seeing a return to rational, fact-based decision-making of the sort we deserve, of the sort George H.W. Bush and Barack Obama personified (I didn't like some of their decisions but I admired the way they made all of them).

Having met Joe Biden years ago in Birmingham and having observed him closely as vice president, I have every confidence that he will make the perfect president to follow in the wake of the disruptions of the past 1,400 days, which he will not add to.I also know that he will be as transparent, truthful and predictableas possible. Hewill not try to break the record of the current president, whose total of documented falsehoods and lies now exceeds 27,000 and counting.

God bless America, indeed, as John Kerry made me say today as I listened to him and the other highly qualified appointees/nominees speak of their honor and humility in the face of the announcements of their new leadership challenges.

Rationality, factuality, patriotism with an emphasis on the country rather than on personal aggrandizement, values we were taught on our mothers' knees, true religion that honors God and people and actually believes in operationalizing Jesus' Great Commandment (which is actually the Great Jewish Commandment) these are going to be evident again in the People's House, which has been soiled by unlawful political use of it in campaign events, especially during the past six months. Sigh.

And did you notice: The stock market did not "crash" during the last 16 days indeed, it just set a new record (it crossed the 30,000 mark; the media did not stop talking about "COVID ... COVID ... COVID on November 4 (how could they in the wake of the tidal wave of infections the current team in D.C. is leaving the new team with?); and the predictions of massive voter fraud from mail-in balloting turned out to be frauds themselves? None of the "hoaxes" turned out to be so.

I am so glad to have lived long enough to treasure this moment in our country's history. As Carlyle said, "Change ... is painful, yet ever needful."

Jim Vickrey writes from his native Montgomery, where he resides after a nearly fifty year-long career as a college professor, lawyer, and university president. He is Professor Emeritus at Troy University.

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