pick of the day – August 26, 2009: “Obama’s Summer of Discontent” – Fouad Ajami
American democracy has never been democracy by plebiscite, a process by which a leader is anointed, then the populace steps out of the way, and the anointed one puts his political program in place. In the American tradition, the “mandate of heaven” is gained and lost every day and people talk back to their leaders. They are not held in thrall by them. The leaders are not infallible or a breed apart. That way is the Third World way, the way it plays out in Arab and Latin American politics.
“The politics of charisma is so Third World. Americans were never going to buy into it for long.”
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