An impressive list of (mostly overlooked) readings about Obama, from Neuroanthropology.
I kept wondering yesterday why, along with being deeply moved while watching the ceremonies, I a deep sense of dread and foreboding. Narrowed it to three things:
- a sadness my mother (who died soon after 9/11) wasn't around to see this, as she would have been immensely moved
and more important:
- Obama looked so utterly alone and somber as he came up the hall and then waited in his chair. He so clearly recognizes the magnitude of the burden he takes on -- a burden heavier because he has defined the task so ambitiously, which is to say so truly and honestly. Can anyone possibly carry that weight? Yet he willingly takes it on.
- And talking with a friend last evening I realized that if indeed we do have the leader we need right now -- if we are lucky enough, as we were during the Civil War and again during the Depression and WWII, to have the leader we need -- then it means the real test passes to the people and other leaders of the country. As Andrew Sullivan put it. Yes he [Obama] can. But can we? And if we can't, what does it say of us?
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Nice to read your thing #2. I went down to watch the inauguration from the Mall on Tuesday, and the part during the ceremony when I teared up the most was, kind of bizarrely, the part of Joe Biden's swearing-in (his oath was longer and more complicated than the President's, which is spelled out in the Constitution), where Biden was repeating the words about taking on his new duties willingly, without any doubt in his heart or purpose of subterfuge...it really got to me, I think for the reasons you state.
So thanks for putting your finger on that. :)