Ghost in the Shell: How George and Now Barack Mirror Our American Psyche

seems supiciously like a poisoned apple — it’ll destroy the next person to touch it. But touch it Obama must, and in Grant Park he had the high seriousness of a man who knew that the apple could be poison but also knew nothing magnificent is ever accomplished without risk.

A group of historians was recently asked to name the worst president in American history. George W. Bush came first. The man who came a clear second was James Buchanan, notorious for his ineptitude in the years leading up to the Civil War. As we look forward to the Obama years — and what a thrilling phrase that is to write, even though I know I’ll probably start criticizing the guy around noon tomorrow — it’s hard not to be encouraged by the recollection that when Buchanan left office, he was succeeded by none other than Abraham Lincoln.

It’s a comparison Obama’s never been shy about courting, ever since announcing his candidacy before the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois, where Lincoln gave his famous “House Divided” speech about slavery. He invoked Honest Abe again the other night, quoting from the Gettysburg Address and is giving his Inauguration a Lincoln theme. It’s far too early to know whether Obama will achieve that kind of stature but having watched him succeed and succeed as I doubted and doubted, I’m no longer prepared to bet against him. Besides, as the incomparable Chris Matthews observed about the presidency of George W. Bush, “This is not a tough act to follow.”