CNN's Christiane Amanpour, who emceed, showed her political stripes when she told the crowd that in the last few months, she'd felt like she was covering "a foreign country having its first-ever democratic election. ... When was the last time we saw the whole world come into the streets dancing in celebration of America instead of demonstrating and burning the flag?"
The New York Observer also observed Amanpour offered her best I'm-not-worthy props to RFK when asked at the naming of New York's Robert F. Kennedy Bridge what she'd like named after her:
Christiane Amanpour also pulled out the humble card. "Oh, please! I don't think so. Not after me. I have achieved a lot, but let's not put us in the same category," she said, referring to Mr. Kennedy.
In an Election Day blog post, Amanpour seemed to tie the electrifying hope of 1968 (which we can guess is not a Nixon reference) and the electrifying hope of 2008 together, as she oddly compared our latest election to landmark votes in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and South Africa:
Finding myself in New York City this U.S. election Day, I saw scenes that reminded me of the first democratic elections I covered in Afghanistan in 2004, or Iraq in 2005.
'Scenes that reminded me of the historic election in South Africa in 1994 when a black man, Nelson Mandela, was elected president thus ending generations of white minority rule known as apartheid.
Or 1998 in Iran when women and young people turned out en masse to elect the first ever reform president, the moderate cleric Mohammad Khatami.
The enduring motif from those elections were the massively long lines at the polling centers. Men and women standing patiently, sometimes for hours, to cast their first ever vote for a hopeful secure future....
No election has electrified the U.S. like this since 1968. But the whole world wishes it could cast a vote in this one. Whatever happens, this U.S. election will change the world. Stay tuned.
