The spectacle of the inauguration confirmed what Obama has become: a vessel for people's desire for a new way of doing politics, and for the return of historic momentum itself. Around the world – from the streets of DC to Kenya, from the town of Moneygall in Ireland, which describes itself as the birthplace of O'Bama's ancestors, to the capitals of continental Europe – there is clearly a deep reservoir of frustration with the creepingly cynical politics of the mainstream.