Our better angels
December 2008
While President-elect Barack Obama’s inspiring election night rhetoric borrowed from Lincoln’s first inaugural address (“Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection…”) and echoed Martin Luther King’s “I have been to the mountaintop” admonition that “the road ahead will be long, our climb will be steep,” many Americans will be forgiven if the evening recalled another new president’s words upon assuming office _ those of Gerald Ford (who followed the disgraced Richard Nixon): “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.”
Obama wisely did not strike an overly… Continue reading