Finally, one feels in Obama's books as well as his speeches the presence of that iconic American, Abraham Lincoln, whom he sometimes names and sometimes namelessly invokes. In The Audacity of Hope, he tells of having once received a rebuke ("not entirely undeserved") for presumptuously likening himself in print to Lincoln. On his first visit to the White House as a freshman senator, he tells us, Lincoln appeared to him as a ghostly figure "pacing the hall, shouldering the weight of a nation," the moral and political genius who managed to maintain "within himself the balance between two contradictory ideas--that we must talk and reach for common understandings, precisely because all of us are imperfect and can never act with the certainty that God is on our side; and yet at times we must act nonetheless, as if we are certain, protected from error only by providence."
This description of Lincoln as a man of self-doubt yet with an unswerving sense of mission is as instructive as it is insightful. Obama seems to have composed his public life in conscious emulation of Lincoln. He announced his candidacy in Springfield and delivered his speech on race in Philadelphia, where Lincoln, en route to his first inauguration, gave a great speech on the Declaration of Independence as America's secular scripture. In his victory speech on the night of clinching the Democratic nomination, Obama incorporated or played variations on several phrases from Lincoln--"the last full measure of devotion," "the last best hope of earth," "the better angels of our nature."
To some, it all seems calculated and hubristic, and they will no doubt continue to detect in his style a self-involved inwardness. But, to me, it feels like heartfelt homage from someone with a keen sense of the complexities and commonalities of human experience. On the hopeful premise that style really does tell us something about the man, this man--to my ear, at least--is the real deal.
Andrew Delbanco teaches at Columbia, where he is Levi Professor in the Humanities and director of American Studies.
From Andrew Delbanco in current Quaker Oats issue of http://www.tnr.com . Just click on current issue and click on article.
Should answer Rick Wright and other's fair minded reservations.
No secret I was strongly leaning toward Obama; this analysis pretty much seals the deal; though I am resigned to the fact Jim and Jonathan will never see the Light.
High time for Barbara Dooley to make an endorsement. Dean Rusk up above is wondering what is she waiting for.
