Frank Rich: The Week Americans Reclaimed Their Country

New York Times:

ON the morning after a black man won the White House, America's tears of catharsis gave way to unadulterated joy.

Our nation was still in the same ditch it had been the day before, but the atmosphere was giddy. We felt good not only because we had breached a racial barrier as old as the Republic. Dawn also brought the realization that we were at last emerging from an abusive relationship with our country's 21st-century leaders. The festive scenes of liberation that Dick Cheney had once imagined for Iraq were finally taking place -- in cities all over America.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[stella801]

Reading this article took my back to my emotions and the deep relief I felt last Tuesday night when Barack Obama and his family came on stage and he made the beautiful speech. We have indeed reclaimed our country. I feel safer and more secure, for lack of better words, knowing he is at the helm now. He his hit the ground running and he has a long road ahead, but I have no doubt he will bring change.

Great article!

[Tulka2]

Great insight that it was not in Iraq, but in the streets of America where people finally danced in liberated joy. Oh, irony.

[KansasWrangler]

" The festive scenes of liberation that Dick Cheney had once imagined for Iraq were finally taking place — in cities all over America."

Great!!!

[CintiBlue]

Wasn't that a great line?!

[socratiskiss]

Frank never fails!

[GrainOSand]

Mr. Rich was poetic.

He struck a chord for me because it was as looking in a mirror or a still pond of clear water; as I read I found myself nodding quite a bit in agreement. “Who are we” remains the central question and that question has everything to do with geometry -- depth, height, and breadth of heart (or ZYX). The election results revealed America has the heart to see that “Nothing from nothing leaves nothing” or that after further review America decided Bush had “Done nothing” and McCain “Offered nothing”. Policies of exclusivity damage through divide when unity is the requirement of the present condition both domestically and abroad.

Things are changing. The average citizens who knew Palin was gimmick more so than gallant await change at the local level through transactions of existence at the local level. Mr. Obama will have to look out on the macro existence; he vied for the biggest platform and suggested he had something to offer. Now he must deliver and that is not the hard part. The hard part is idea over Party, being a consistent theme through election cycles. It is about being steadfast and realistic about change, and the realization that feeble people as individual celebrity is a distortion of the power of “people kind”. Mr. Obama is catalyst. We the people remain the engine. Communities need to strengthen. That is the next crucial step. Batten down the hatches and all hands on deck.

[lizr]

and let's get back on board with equal rts for gay people for chris sake.

we let our rts take a backseat to electing O, and we'd appreciate some postive attention to our own wou nds.

[Rog49Thomas]

"So let’s be blunt. Almost every assumption about America that was taken as a given by our political culture on Tuesday morning was proved wrong by Tuesday night"

Nup (that's the negative of "yup").

All that was proven was that in the midst of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, enough voters were scared enough to overlook their other prejudices to elect That One because he offers the best promise of fixing the problem and they wanted (as usual) to punish the party in power.

There's been no great movement to liberalism and progressivism. No sudden Second Enlightenment. No Dawning of the Age of Aquarius (for those of Brother Frank's generation).

And this great wave is subject to tidal forces. Let there be another terrorist attack. Let the economy be in the tank and you may be saying the dreaded words President Palin.

One other comment - more properly a question. Are the "Americans" who reclaimed "their country" the liberal "real Americans" and did we wrest it from those who live in the anti American parts of our country? Paging Ms. Bachman.

[1dogs2]

Well, Rog, your comment is evidence that cynicism is not yet dead. Another terrorist attack during an Obama administration would be unlikely to set off a "tidal force" of the sort that occurred on 9/11 because his administration would be disinclined to use it to seize unwarranted power by means of unrelenting fear-mongering and appeal to our worst instincts rather than to our better angels. The economy IS in the tank and I give the majority of the American people credit for enough intelligence to see that that a disaster so long in the making (starting with Reagan's voodoo economics, or even earlier, with Carter's penchant for deregulation, and continuing through the Clinton and Bush administrations) will not be undone overnight. I also credit the majority of the electorate with memories long enough to recall the ugliness of our political discourse going back to Gingrich's arbitrary change of the name of the Democratic party so that they will not soon welcome the likes of Palin. Try a little hope for better things and work for change.

[Gemma08]

Brilliant.

[spillersgirl]

Wow! Thank you Rich for this powerful analysis of Nov. 4, 2008!

[nwfurn]

Perfectly said! Thank you.

[Tiberon]

Wow. Rich at his best.

[MIVOTE]

Great post!

[bob8788]

great read

http://barackobamacans.blogspot.com/