Nov 10, 2008

George Will:

For now, the president-elect is coming to terms with something noted by Ambrose Bierce, the 19th-century American wit who wrote "The Devil's Dictionary." He defined "president" as the leading figure in a small group of persons of whom it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want them to be president. Tuesday night, Obama, in his agreeably subdued speech in Grant Park, seemed to feel the weight of that.

He especially seemed determined to assuage the unease of those, and they are many, who discern in his cool demeanor an unattractive detachment from the warm, unembarrassed, demonstrative patriotism that is distinctively American. Hence such Grant Park language as: "Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us." That was a prospective commander in chief finding his voice.

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