Sadder, wiser, those of us gathered on the Washington Mall in the freezing morn of Mr Obama’s inauguration can see now that of all the brave, unsustainable hopes uttered by the new young president, the most unsustainable of all turned out to be his Biblical plea to “put away childish things”. He might as well have tried to legislate the word “dream” out of American public discourse. Dreams? Reality? It’s not even close, is it?
Whether fantasy will prevail over factuality, adolescent wishful thinking over maturity, will be the great political motif of the next few years. The omens are not auspicious….
How insensitive of President Obama to vacation in Hawaii while much of the country suffers from the effects of the Christmas blizzard.
For an historian, Schama doesn’t show much insight. His enthusiasm for the left clouded his judgment.
Interesting that a nonAmerican would write as if he were one. He nicely placed himself in the midst of the last Inauguration. Simon Schama has made a lucrative career in the UK out of dissing England, British/English traditional history and culture, and the English people. Now he’s applying the same formula to Americans, I see.