Magic

How Obama broke the dark spell and returned America to itself.

CNN’s Jessica Yellin in Chicago appeared in its New York election headquarters as a hologram last night. Over seven hundred miles away she stood there on Wolf Blitzer’s familiar set like the media equivalent of Princess Leia and told the implacable anchor of the building ecstasy in Grant Park where American history would, in a few short hours be turned inside out.

This has been an election full of magic. White Magic that only the black man from everywhere and nowhere could perform. Even his adored grandmother dying on the eve of the victory had a mythic feeling of completion to it in a candidacy full of signs and symbols. Remember the three-point basketball shot when he played with the soldiers in Kuwait? It’s as if Obama is the prince who lifts the curse in a fairy story, a curse that began eight years ago with an election wrenched away from the rightful winner and begetting as a consequence the wrathful visitation of tragedy and wars and hurricanes and economic collapse.

Perhaps the most moving image in the Chicago crowd last night was the pudgy, tear streaked face of Rev. Jesse Jackson as he held aloft his little American flag.

Last night President-Elect Barack Obama gave America back its idea of itself. Just by winning he restored the nobility of a dream that has inspired the world for 230 years. As he told us all last night: “This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change.” We were given that chance once in our longing for service and unity after 9/11 but what we got was a call to go shopping and we know where that took us. Even McCain seemed a different man when he conceded. Noble again. A Man of honor. The curse of this campaign has been lifted from him too.

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