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Obama's not megalomaniacal. He's Whitmanesque.

Blogs Anne Trubek.

He strode on the stage alone, addressed us alone, and left alone. The families joined him, but after they left he lingered, waving, alone. I am a singular figure, he was saying, but I am also all of you.

Singular and many. ?I am large, I contain multitudes,? Walt Whitman wrote....

Like Whitman, Obama is wholly himself and the embodiment of us. Both meld individual self with national identity....

Meld individual self with national identity... Hmm. It's one thing for a poet to do that, but for a political leader? I will refrain from naming the leaders that spring to mind. The embodiment of us.... But what if I don't want to be embodied?

At Grant Park, Obama was evidence that, as Whitman wrote in the preface to his epic ?Leaves of Grass,? ?The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.? Obama absorbs Whitman, we absorb Obama, and ?the United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.?

So are we absorbing him, or is he absorbing us? I'm not sure how this Oneness is supposed to proceed.

Full post as published by Althouse on November 12, 2008 (boomark / email).