Yglesias Award Nominee

"The kinder thing to say is that this was an impressive celebration of left-wing patriotism, the sort of thing this country hasn’t seen on such a scale in years or even decades. In an essay for Time last year, Peter Beinart observed, with some accuracy, that "conservatives tend to see patriotism as an inheritance from a glorious past," while "liberals often see it as the promise of a future that redeems the past." The inaugural concert was all about the latter sort: The patriotism of Seeger and Springsteen; of white Hollywood and the black church; of Gene Robinson and the Gay Men’s Chorus; and of course the Pope of liberal Christianity himself … I won’t say that it was exactly my kind of celebration, but it was the kind of celebration that liberal America has waited an awfully long time to experience. And I would be an ungrateful graduate of many a boyhood Pete Seeger singalong – I know the "radical verses" as well as any Obamaphile – if I didn’t feel happy for my left-of-center countrymen in their hour of long-awaited celebration. You can’t say that they didn’t work awfully hard for it," – Ross Douthat, The Atlantic.