I got my last "tweet" from Obama on the morning of the 5th: "We just made history. All of this happened because you gave your time, talent and passion. All of this happened because of you. Thanks". My.BarackObama.com now offers it services as a blank and vague portal for "local organising"; activity has slowed markedly on the site. Electoral victory put an end to the campaigning purpose of such tools, which in the previous months had been meticulous in their direction. Once the means achieve their desired end, they end themselves.

Yet the President-elect rolled out a new website, Change.gov, aimed at making the process of transition more transparent. A noble intention, of course, but when that intention is bolstered by such saccharine and cringe-worthy blog posts as this, it seems risible at best, propagandist at worst. We don't need the organ of the President-elect to tell us that "Words like 'brilliant,' 'sharp,' 'energetic,' and 'visionary' are coming from across the political spectrum in praise for President-elect Barack Obama's choices to lead his economic team." As a friend pointed out, much of the site reads like official Chinese Communist Party newspapers.

It is disappointing that the energy and dynamism of the previous months seems lost on Change.gov. In the hands of Obama's campaign, the internet was perfectly harnessed to build momentum and galvanise support. His new venture on the internet is on the path to becoming a reminder of the stultifying effect of power.

But most importantly, in my opinion, the system reduces the diverse political landscape of the country into monochrome blocks. It creates the crippling sense of a "red state" vs "blue state" divide. If a popular vote was in place, this perception would not have room to flourish. As the editorial points out, over 40% of voters in deep red Alabama cast their ballot for Obama, while 4.5 million Californians voted for McCain (equivalent to the number of votes the Republican got in Texas). If Obama is serious about transcending red-blue fissures, he should welcome the burgeoning national movement for the popular vote.

The reflection of the memorial - eerily reminiscent of the pillars of light that all too briefly replaced the World Trade Centre after 9/11 - tells a cautionary tale. Even the brightest alabaster of presidential grandeur has its dark side. He probably knows this. Obama's performance on 60 Minutes was low-key and almost pedestrian, belying the tremendous anticipation weighted on the President-elect. On display was not only Obama's famous calm, but his deep respect for the office and the moment he has risen to. Perhaps he has imbibed the "wisdom" of Lincoln. The "greatness" expected of him, Obama knows, will only materialise if it ultimately draws from a deeper reserve of modesty.  

Hat-tip to BAGnewsNotes.

He placed the flailing economy at the fore, consistently abstracting the crisis above the candidates themselves (in clear contrast to the McCain campaign's plunges into the personal). Obama repeated his commitment not to make "a big election about small things". Yet he responded to the more absurd attacks on his supposed "ideology" by strongly defending his platform.

"Government should do what we can't do for ourselves," he said, in arguing the great role government has to play in engendering prosperity in the country, before really sticking to his guns: "John McCain calls it socialism, I call it opportunity." But there is more at stake in this election than vying policies.  Showing that he could meld the political scrapper with the high-minded orator, Obama returned to his rhetorical best towards the end of the speech. "In one week, we can come together as a nation and as a people and choose our better history." As ever, Obama was finely aware of the power of narratives in this election. Both McCain and Obama have drafted stories of themselves as individuals and leaders. But only Obama's campaign has appealed to a renewed narrative of Americanness that in its craft and warmth has that strange (and often dubious) power to inspire.

For a hack who imagines the end of western civilization around every corner, Phillips unsurprisingly finds the most self-destructive instincts of the west in him. "Obama stands for the expiation of America's original sin in oppressing black people, the third world and the poor," she writes. "Obama thinks world conflicts are basically the west's fault, and so it must right the injustices it has inflicted."

According to Phillips, Obama is the epitome of the guilt-ridden, multicultural self-hater. His inevitable failures as president would not only be those of diplomatic compromise, but of cultural and historical surrender. Overreaching minorities will be coddled within their obliging societies. Terrorists will become objects of politically-correct sympathy. Iraq and Afghanistan will be evacuated. Israel will be sacrificed to the Arabs. Obama will strip the US - and ultimately, the "West" - of the right to assert its identity and strength. Under an Obama presidency, there will be no safe buffer zone - political and psychological - between the west and the rest.

Of course, Phillips has no real interest in looking at Obama seriously. She only wants him to be a woodcut in her shadow world of demons and angels. So it makes sense that her rant impresses other paladins of the clash of civilisations (see the comments below her piece on The Spectator website). It's as willfully deaf to reality as they are.

Never mind that there are perfectly reasonable, moderate arguments for (a) negotiating with Iran, (b) scheduling withdrawal from Iraq, (c) limiting US support for Israel, (d) searching for non-military solutions in Afghanistan, and (e) rethinking the frame and phraseology of the "war on terrorism".

The fact is that Obama is not a foreign policy sans culotte, hungry to uproot the American interest for the sake of global common good. A casual glance at his platform, his team of advisers, and his speeches throughout the campaign (notably the one given before AIPAC, the pro-Israel pressure group) show that Obama is far less ideological in his world view  than John McCain, and certainly less so than the Bush administration. His cool temperament is matched by an equally cool appraisal of America's role in the world. Even "defenders of the West", like Phillips, should welcome the arrival to Washington of his style of pragmatism.

But what I find much more worrying about Phillips' piece is how she understands Obama as a symbol. She claims that "Obama stands for the expiation of America's original sin in oppressing black people, the third world and the poor." This is a remarkable inversion.

Obama does indeed "stand for" something larger in the racial history of the United States: its transcendence. His sober and moving speech on race asked all Americans to both recognise and overcome the past; it did not demand "white guilt". Were Obama to reach the White House, he would "stand for" the traditions of openness, possibility and innovation that have, in large part, made America the superpower it is today. Obama's story is a quintessentially American one.

It's telling that Phillips spins this glowing narrative into one of benighted minorities and the "third world" lording it over the feeble west. Perhaps Phillips is stuck in a peculiarly bitter, European understanding of belonging and identity, one that is too narrow to accommodate the American significance of Obama's rise. Surely, the prospect of a black president of clearly moderate political bent need not plunge conservatives like Phillips into such gloom. But it seems for her that the line between miserablism and racism is quite thin. I'd rather she stayed miserable.

It's difficult to gauge bias in such a venerable fixture of the American media landscape, one which in almost all respects is painfully centrist and middle-class in its sensibilities. Yes, the paper's op-ed page is predominantly populated by left-leaning columnists, and its editorials mostly take left-leaning positions. But there is little to the suggestion that the paper in the sum of its parts is somehow "leftist"; it was the New York Times, after all, that resurrected the spectre of Bill Ayers by recently making the ex-radical front-page news.

Were Obama to go on to win the presidency, many grumbling conservatives will fault a "pliant" media for giving the Democrat the edge. As Peggy Noonan writes in the Wall Street Journal, "The press knows who the press is for, and it isn't generally the one to the right." While Noonan goes on to blame McCain's own failings - not media bias - for his seemingly impending defeat, the image of a press corps swooning for Obama will remain a part of the narrative of this election campaign. 

But when only 18% of Americans get their news from print media, the grey lady looks more like a straw man. Talk radio and the explosive mix of news and opinion on 24/7 news channels have steered American discourse clearly to the right in the last fifteen years. In the end, newspaper endorsements don't count for much. And - despite Palin's protestations - nor do the east coast's "liberal" rags.

The message, found and translated from a password-protected website monitored by the SITE Intelligence Group, went on: "If al-Qaeda carries out a big operation against American interests, this act will be support of McCain because it will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda then will succeed in exhausting America till its last year in it."

Neither the McCain nor the Obama campaign have responded strongly to the message, which seems to play quite clearly into Obama's hands. The Democratic candidate's camp would be wise to keep fairly quiet about the message, lest they are seen to be playing politics with the musings of "terrorists".

03:14 Obama is strong in supporting Roe vs. Wade. Once again, McCain feebly waves at Obama's record. Rebuffed with confidence and clarity. 

03:06 The Republican continues to clutch at straws. Deploys strategic Freudian slip by calling Obama, "Senator Government". 

03:01 Health insurance time: Obama wants people to band together for the greater good. Damn pinko, says McCain. Isn't that right, Joe the Plumber? Healthcare is not American, it's Canadian and E n g l i s h. Yuck. 

02:55 McCain is fearmongering. Compares Obama to Herbert Hoover. I think McCain is probably more like George Bush.

02:52 McCain gets into specifics. He's trying to be as boring as Obama. I don't think scoring points on Colombia really helps him.

02:49 Clash of the energy platforms. Statistics come to Obama's rescue once again. Math = bludgeoning impression of authority. 

02:43 McCain has to justify his selection of Sarah Palin. Does so by demonising the "old boy network". Wrong move, Johnny boy.

02:39 Obama brushes the allegations off his shoulder. McCain feebly lays siege again, but the catapults fall way short. Obama is chuckling.

02:36 McCain: "Those women, who wear hats, at my rallies... they're not a lynch-mob." Keeps on going. Beating the Ayers and ACORN drum.

02:31 For Obama to bring up, in specifics, the horrific language surrounding McCain's rallies, in this frank and conversational way, is just devastating for McCain.

02:29 McCain tries to make the case that Obama has been the negative campaigner. So Obama is now d e s t r o y i n g him. 

02:25 The elephant is smashing the room. Time to get dirty.... and McCain definitely does so, mentioning Bobby Kennedy's assassination a la Hillary Clinton. 

02:24 Obama says "reach across the aisle". Drink! Insists that McCain is very much like Bush. McCain disagrees: he has the scars to prove it. 

02:22 Obama reminds everybody that McCain is in Bush's Republican party. McCain responds strongly - I really think so - saying that he isn't George Bush, and that if Obama wanted to run for George Bush he should have done so. But then he goes and talks about wielding hatchets and scalpels again. Bloodthirsty. Obama is now defending his bi-partisan record. 

02:19 McCain said "pork-barrel". Drink!

02:17 After Obama promises an "ethic of responsibility", McCain promises that he can he's a real fighting man; he can double-fist the hatchet and the scalpel.

02:15 Obama once again is the details man. It didn't seem very convincing to me last time around. It does now. Practice makes...

02:12 Obama shouldn't have said, "Nobody likes paying taxes." But McCain quickly switches from helping Joe the Plumber to advocating the needs of business. Republican populism a bit thinly veiled these days?

02:10 Obama is strong on his tax plan, blows McCain's pathetic plea for Joe out of the water. McCain smarting, pulls out the age-old, rusting Republican weapon: "class warfare".

02:08 Grandfather McCain offers to protect Joe's hard-earned income. But will Joe the Plumber really qualify for a higer tax bracket? Really?

02:05 McCain begins disarmingly, barely mentioning and not attacking Obama, and outlining a new house ownership proposal. Obama responds blandly, draws a technical distinction.

02:03 And we're off. Nancy Reagan's pelvis is the first item on McCain's domestic fix list.

The onus rests on McCain to take the debate by the horns. Will he eschew the negative tactics that have supposedly contributed to his slump in the polls, or will he bring up the bogeymen of William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright? How will he defend his proposed economic policies when a majority of Americans would rather have Obama steering the economy through troubled waters? Can he turn the doddering awkwardness of his last appearance into controlled and comfortable authority?

Obama is likely to continue performing as blandly as he has in the prior clashes, boring his way to a favourable-looking draw. In McCain lies the potential for pyrotechnics. The debate kicks off at 02.00 BST, tune in to openUSA for real-time commentary and analysis on our live-blog.