Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Obamazing victory

Well, the miracle has happened. I didn't sleep a lot during the early hours of our European morning, because I was glued to CNN on my wide-screen TV, watching history unfolding.

After getting accustomed to the TV color code (blue for the Democrats, red for the Republicans), I was amused by this striking image of the new first family, evoking the title of Stendhal's great novel, The Red and the Black. For Stendhal's hero Julian Sorel, the color red designated the army, whereas black evoked the clergy. Last night in Chicago, I had the impression that the red symbolized Barack Obama's constant theme of leftist change, whereas black was of course the color of the skin of this new American statesman and leader. Maybe, those splashes of red in the Chicago evening were intended to indicate Obama's desire to reach out towards his former Republican opponents in a bipartisan spirit. The simplest explanation, of course, is that Barack Obama's wife and elder daughter felt like wearing bright clothes to celebrate, and that nothing's brighter than red. In any case, it's unlikely that their bright clothes cost them thousands of dollars.

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