Last night, I finished reading that long, long, long inside special piece on our recent presidential election that Newsweek published this week. I didn’t get a formal word count, but I estimate it is about 50,000 words long.

I came away with two new things from the piece. First, the unflappable demeanor which President-elect Obama displayed during the campaign is a very deep seated personality trait. Second, the peculiar, irrational direction changes displayed by the McCain campaign clearly reflect a poor excercise in leadership skills on the part of Senator McCain.

Each of these observations were uninformed opions of mine prior to the piece’s publication. It was interesting to read of specific moments in the piece which upheld these views.