Like every New Yorker reader, I am perpetually behind. But I’ve been greatly enjoying reading issues from before the election. Knowing how it turns out relieves all the stress.

It also deepens the joy. Thomas Mallon has a terrific article (book review, actually) in the Oct. 13 issue, about how our view of Lincoln has changed over the years. For example, when the Lincoln Memorial was first opened, in 1922, Lincoln was celebrated as the Great Unifier, not the Great Emancipator. Here’s how the article concludes:

In 1909, the Reverend L. H. Magee, the pastor of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Springfield, Illinois, voiced his disgust at the exclusion of blacks from the town’s centennial dinner, but he imagined that by the time of the bicentennial, in 2009, racial prejudice would be “relegated to the dark days of ‘Salem witchcraft.’ ” Next year’s Lincoln commemorations in Washington will include the reopening of Ford’s Theatre, restored for performances for the second time since 1893, when its interior collapsed, killing twenty-two people. Congress will convene in a joint session on February 12th, and on May 30th the still new President will rededicate the Lincoln Memorial. The look and the emphasis of the occasion will have changed—measurably, for certain; astoundingly, perhaps—in the fourscore and seven years since 1922.

[Tags: lincoln slavery racism obama hope good_writing ]

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From Martin Varsavsky:

On November 5th Americans will discover that the world did not hate them. That they just hated Bush.

(Knocking wood.) And (knocking entire old-growth forests) maybe we’ll discover that we don’t have to hate ourselves. May the war between the Red and the Blue begin to end.

It will not be a love-in. In particular, the culture warriors on the left will discover that they didn’t elect a tribal leader. They elected (feverish wood-knocking) a person with liberal values who will continue to repudiate the touchstone liberal issues precisely as touchstones, just as he has done throughout this campaign: Drill, baby, drill, if you can find places where drilling truly wouldn’t hurt the environment. Merit pay for teachers, baby, so long as all teachers are paid respectful wages. Obama’s hope is that we can get past the kneejerk positions that are used to test the loyalty of the faithful, that is, that are used to drive our country apart.

It’s not compromising, in which each side grudgingly gives up a little. It’s certainly not triangulating, by which cowards flee to the least dangerous position. It’s called listening — finding what’s best in what’s being said. It is the only way we heal. It’s what Obama has been about throughout his life.

So, get ready for some hope. It’s going to sting at first.

[Tags: obama politics liberals hope knocking_wood ]

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