You don't get a night and a day like this very often.

In one way it's a bit like the obverse of that day of September 11. That was terrible day, and it seemed as if pretty well the whole world was watching and grieving and recognising an America that we loved.   And then it seemed as if that America was taken away from us, and replaced by one that didn't seem to want to be loved, and didn't seem to feel any need to be loved.

And now it feels as if it's come back, and we can hope it's come back to stay, and that it is, to use the term that Sarah Palin misapplied, the real America.

It seems remarkably appropriate that on the very the`eve of Barack Obama's inauguration as president it will be Martin Luther King Day.