>Obama is to an extent an empty vessel, as his detractors allege. Pour into the vessel your hopes and dreams and they will fit. Very thin record. My instinct, which I rely on, is that there is something unusual about him that goes beyond the glitz. I don't think we get candidates like this all the time. The great ones almost always do it young. You could look it up ((c) Casey Stengel).

That's because they get a chance before they're too bitter, before they hold a thick bundle of grudges, before they need a whole wing in the museum for the pictures of the enemies they made.