I walked back to my seat and typed up some language that set up the point Obama wanted to make, running through a list of areas where Turkey needed to improve its human rights record and ending with “I say this as the president of a country that not very long ago made it hard for somebody who looks like me to vote, much less be president of the United States. But it is precisely that capacity to change that enriches our countries.” The references to America’s own historical sins—to people like Obama and me—reflected a positive, patriotic, and progressive view of American history; the capacity
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