socialmedian: Obama's year of vitriol and rebuff at home, deadlock abroad. Not a bad start at all

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Obama's year of vitriol and rebuff at home, deadlock abroad. Not a bad start at all | Jonathan Freedland

Source: The Guardian

Nov 03, 2009

Summary

Obama's victory speech at Grant Park may seem a distant mirage. But for all the failings, the president can point to real progress

On that improbably warm night exactly one year ago, the crowd in Grant Park, Chicago, cheered itself hoarse as Barack Obama, the newly minted president-elect of the United States, stepped on stage and announced that "change has come to America".

Of course they were cheering the passing of George Bush and the historic breakthrough of America's first black president. But the air that night was also heavy with imagining: the hordes in Grant Park, like those around the world punching the sky as they watched on TV, were picturing how different things might be with Obama in charge.

Surely the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would soon become memories, along with Camp X-Ray at Guantánamo Bay, which the new president had promised to close. Iran would clasp the hand Obama planned to extend, while Israelis and Palestinians would heed the president's promise to work for Middle East peace the moment he took office. The economy would soon be righte

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