Word: nationalism
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...Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear ..." Well, nothing was more stunning and cathartic than those few words. Not the remarkable American diorama - in all its polychromatic wonder - spread out for miles on the National Mall in Washington. Not the clear, sober cadences of our new President's Inaugural Address. Not the prayers and tears, the unstoppable smiles and barely controlled giddiness of what may have been the happiest crowd ever to grace the nation's capital. A man named Barack Hussein Obama is now the President of the United States. He came to us as the ultimate outsider...
...province of the market. We have had 30 years of paeans to the wonders of free enterprise, but Obama made it clear that markets are not an unalloyed good: "This crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control. The nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous." (See pictures of Obama's campaign behind the scenes...
...that was the oddest aspect of Obama's transition, the lack of pomp and bombast to it. He rarely used the word I; he addressed the nation as a community of mature adults. He was all modesty; he asked for better ideas for his monumental stimulus plan (and quickly acceded to Democratic demands that he remove some of the tax breaks for small businesses). He seemed, at every turn, to predict that he would make mistakes; he did so once more at the congressional lunch immediately after he was sworn in. The cumulative effort of this behavior has been...
...would be nice to think the magnitude of the problems facing the nation would lead to a minimum of puerile contentiousness, but vile still seems to be the default position for some of Obama's noisier detractors - "Obama Flubs the Oath" was the inaccurate headline greeting the new President on the Drudge Report. Too many of us in the media remain reluctant "to set aside childish things." Happily, though, our new President seems to have an honest predilection for treating his opponents with respect. He seems intent on hearing their points of view and arguing, decorously, with them - that...
...Sarah Palin's small-town America, and even many liberals who had lost hope over time - a new, gloriously unexpected and vibrant face of our country. The sheer fun of the Inauguration, the world-record number of interracial hugs and kisses, augurs a new heterodox cultural energy, a nation - as the man said - of mutts. Already the Obama ethos is slipping into the nation's cultural bloodstream - not just the interraciality but also the mind-blowing normality of the family: the fact that Michelle Obama brought Laura Bush a going-away present, the fact that Sasha and Malia will make...