By David Ignatius
Sunday, May 11, 2008; Page B07
Barack Obama called himself an "imperfect messenger" in his victory speech in North Carolina last Tuesday. That was a refreshing touch of humility, but it was also a fact. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is far from perfect.
But he has demonstrated the most mysterious and precious gift in politics, which is grace under pressure.Obama has remained "Mr. Cool," even when his campaign seemed to be blowing up around him. He didn't do the politically expedient things: He didn't wear his patriotism on his lapel with an American flag pin; he didn't promptly disown his race-baiting former pastor, Jeremiah Wright; he didn't apologize for comments by his wife, Michelle, that many Americans found unpatriotic. You can say what you like about the substance of these positions, but the interesting fact is that Obama didn't flinch.
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The past several months have revealed Obama's vulnerabilities, but they've also shown his ability to take a punch. Many whites are furious that he didn't throw Wright overboard sooner, but blacks surely like him all the more for resisting the pressure. And there's an instinctive American fondness for people who don't rat out their friends, even when their friends are creeps. That's why a Wright-based strategy may backfire for the Republicans, just as it did for Hillary Clinton.
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What's compelling about Obama is that fusion of grace and ambition. He's playing for the highest stakes, but he makes it look easy. That cool, graceful quality evokes John F. Kennedy and the Rat Pack -- all these sleek, handsome men in silk suits and skinny ties who never break character, never miss a beat.
Albert Murray titled a collection of his essays on black culture "The Omni-Americans." That was his view of the African American experience, that it pointed in every direction at once -- toward anger and healing, toward rage at America and a patriotism that has led blacks to serve in disproportionate numbers in the military, toward the paradox of hating America and being intensely loyal to it.
That's the history-changing package that Barack Obama brings to the presidential race. Based on last week's primary results, we have a rendezvous in November with that vision of "Omni-America" and the transcendent and potentially disruptive change it represents.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/09/AR2008050902045.html