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Obama the human being | Dan Kennedy

Source: The Guardian

Nov 01, 2009

Summary

Since his election Barack Obama has emerged as a thoughtful leader, struggling against perceptions of radicalism

Today is a day to wallow in symbolism – to marvel at the fact that this race-haunted country has not just elected a black president, but has given him a mandate the likes of which no Democratic president-elect has received since Lyndon Johnson in 1964
(Savour the day, 5 November 2008)

My apologies for distorting Samuel Johnson's original meaning, but the election of Barack Obama a year ago represented the triumph of hope over experience. The symbolism of Obama was so overwhelming – the first African-American to be chosen as president in our race-benighted society, the end of the war- and torture-drenched insanity of the Bush-Cheney years – that Obama the human being was scarcely visible.

Now, 12 months since his victory and some nine months into his presidency, I think we know what we've got: a pragmatic and thoughtful liberal, sometimes cautious to a fault, struggling to overcome the media-enabled perception that he's a radical leftwinger simply beca

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