Obama was elected on a tidal wave of optimism,promising to heal America’s wounds. Did he deliver? Gary Younge looks back on an electrifying victory night in 2008 – and what came nextWhen Ohio fell on election night 2008, the President’s Lounge, or a bar on the overwhelmingly black south side of Chicago,erupted in jubilation. Corks popped, strangers hugged, or police patrolling the streets yelled the freshly elected president’s name from their loudhailers: “Obama!”As I scanned the faces at the bar,one woman looked at me, beaming, or raised her margarita and shouted: “My man’s in Afghanistan. He’s coming home! Barack Obama had never said anything approximately ending the war in Afghanistan. Indeed,he had pledged to ramp up the US military effort there. But she had not misunderstood him; she had simply projected her hopes on to him and mistaken them for fact.
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Source: theguardian.com