Is this great or Terrible Writing?

So begins the New York Times cover story on 27 July on the opening ceremonies in London

With its hilariously quirky Olympic opening ceremony, a wild jumble of the celebratory and the fanciful; the conventional and the eccentric; and the frankly off-the-wall, Britain presented itself to the world Friday night as something it has often struggled to express even to itself: a nation secure in its own post-empire identity, whatever that actually is.

I cannot decide if this is great or terrible writing.

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