„For the first time in the memory of most of us a major political party was moving in the direction of nominating a demonstrably superior candidate—a genuinely literate man in a culture that does not prize literacy, an actually cosmopolitan man in an arena that deems tolerance of the world suspect by definition. A civil man. A politically adroit man. Enthusiasm was high. Participation was up. Yet something troubled. What troubled had nothing to do with the candidate himself. It had to do instead with the reaction he evoked. […] Irony was now out. Naiveté, translated into ‚hope,‘ was now in. Innocence, even when it looked like ignorance, was now prized. Partisanship could now be appropriately expressed by consumerism. I couldn’t count the number of snapshots I got e-mailed showing people’s babies dressed in Obama gear.“ [#]
