Even though I know what’s coming, every time I watch this video I get a pleasant jolt at the end, a little visual thrill of recognition of how smart we’ve become in spite of our stupidity during the first four-fifths of this decade and in spite of the awful tenacity of stupid traditions. How fantastic to have taken down the Whites Only sign at the White House. I grew up in a time and place when even a public toilet in a Greyhound Bus Station was for whites only.
Every time I see President Obama on TV I remember what it was like to watch George Bush all those years, particularly when he tried to come up with a big smile to cover an obvious lie. Being no more adept at that than a lot of other things he could only grimace in a grossly unattractive and unpleasant way. What fascinates me the most is the mystery (for me) of what it would be like now having been a strong Bush supporter (with an intact memory) and watching, for instance, Obama at yesterday’s news conference. For such a viewer, does some degree of reality break through the earlier hypnosis? Is the contrast between the current and the former president, as well as those around them, an active part of the Wake-Up Call one hears so much about these trying days?
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