when hope and history rhyme

 

Ross Douthat, conservative commentator:

I hope I will be forgiven a touch of hyperbole when I say that it's hard to imagine a more inspiring back-to-back of political addresses than McCain's concession and Obama's victory speech.

I agree, and I think a bit of hyperbole is not just allowed but necessary.

McCain's speech was wonderful: moving, eloquent, generous, more elegiac than defiant. That he had to tamp down an angry crowd only made it more poignant. People will say it was the best bit of his campaign and they'll be right, though it is hard to be all the things he was in his speech when you're in a fight for your political life.

As for Obama's, well, it lived up to the occasion, which is just about the highest compliment it's possible to pay. He took a sober, almost sombre tone. It was a long way from the excited, impassioned music of his 2004 speech that made him famous, or his announcement speech in January 2007. But it was just as inspiring. The finest passage was when he made it clear that he would be a president for all the people, that he "heard the voices" of those who didn't vote for him, and that this was about much more than one party's victory. It sounded entirely authentic.

Both men adopted elements of their stump speeches. McCain finished with the familiar cry "We never hide from history, we make history," and it suddenly seemed to be about the amazing thing American has just done. Obama used his trademark refrain "Yes we can" but turned it into a rousing call to the nation rather than his supporters.

Back to Douthat's point: what other nation could produce two such speeches at a turning point in its history? What other nation could have sustained such a sustained, passionate, colourful argument over two years without resort to arms? And what other nation could tell a story like Obama's?

America has a chequered history and some massive problems. But today it can feel proud, and the rest of the world should be inspired by its example.

Comments

[Theisa]

Hi Ian, I think you have just done an outstanding job covering this election.

Thank you so much for that - yours along with Sullivan, Smith and Tapper have been the most reliable, consistent, intelligent and emotional places online to get information for me, in Europe, who have been refreshing my Google Reader election feed 11 times a day.

I found the blog through the Observer top 50 blogs and has been following it since. Came here today on an election-come-down thinking I couldn't cry anymore slow tears after watching so many touching videos (the Guardian's home page, the NYT home page, and Maya Angelou on today's CBS Early Show, the latter especially very worth of watching), but then you post Charles below and the last two paragraphs of the post above. And here I go again..

You have been a great read - I will keep the blog in my now-less-hefty Google reader to see where you take us.. Thanks again!

[Lyle]

At last...we can feel proud again. We're a positive example again. There's still work to do every day in ordinary transactions with our neighbors and people we encounter; racism doesn't dwindle away in one day. But the message this sends to people at home and abroad...at last! And the work that finally can get done on health care, climate change, energy independence -- adios, Halliburton and cronies of your ilk!

Breaking the racial barrier for president is icing on the cake -- as Reagan's former drug czar Bill Bennett himself said on election night, Obama was a formidable candidate with keen intellect and a uniquely steady temperament, so much better suited for the job than his opponent or the current occupant. At last, we are headed in the right (or should I say, correct) direction.