I would have thought he’d be squarer. As part of the pre-inauguration Obama lovefest, Michiko even gets in on the act, reminding us that, against all odds, a literate, well-read man is going to be running the free world as of tomorrow. Sweet merciful crap. I can’t believe it. (I love how she spends the entire article calling him “Mr. Obama”. Last chance for eight years!)

In college, as he was getting involved in protests against the apartheid government in South Africa, Barack Obama noticed, he has written, “that people had begun to listen to my opinions.” Words, the young Mr. Obama realized, had the power “to transform”: “with the right words everything could change -— South Africa, the lives of ghetto kids just a few miles away, my own tenuous place in the world.”

Much has been made of Mr. Obama’s eloquence — his ability to use words in his speeches to persuade and uplift and inspire. But his appreciation of the magic of language and his ardent love of reading have not only endowed him with a rare ability to communicate his ideas to millions of Americans while contextualizing complex ideas about race and religion, they have also shaped his sense of who he is and his apprehension of the world.