Some Timeless Words from Senator Robert Kennedy
I haven’t been able to find the words, recently, for the overwhelming movement we all are privileged to witness during this magnificent time. I have found myself holding back tears and even full out weeping from the diaries on this site, the words of Senator Obama, and the actions of so many dedicated and compassionate volunteers that I have the privilege of working with. For too long over the last eight years, the tears burning my cheeks come from the anguish of terror and war, the destruction of our guiding principles, and the fear that has been instilled by so many. But now, we have already achieved more than only a few dared to dream. So, until I can find my own words again. I wanted to to share with this remarkable community, with my friends, and with those young kossacks, an excerpt from a speech Robert Kennedy gave to The University of Mississippi on March 18th, 1966:
Your generation, South and North, white and black, is the first with the chance not only to remedy the mistakes, which all of us have made in the past, but to transcend them. Your generation, this generation, cannot afford to waste its substance and its hope in the struggles of the past, for beyond these walls is a world to be helped and improved and made safe for the welfare of mankind. And what a world it is. Since I graduated from high school, the United States has fought in two wars and is now involved in a third. Nuclear weapons have been invented and tested and they have now spread to five nations. The great colonial empires of Europe have been dissolved, and more than seventy new nations have now been created. We begin to learn how to deal with one great hostile power, the Soviet Union, and then beyond its borders them empire of China begins to grow in significance and in danger. And in every continent…men claim their right to share in the bounty which modern knowledge can bring, and they claim also, the justice which they have heard proclaimed in that document, which listed the inalienable rights of man. I have seen scrawled on the sidewalks of Indonesia and on the walls of Africa and Latin America, not ‘workers of world unite,’ but ‘all men are created equal’ and ‘give me liberty or give me death.’ They draw their hope for change and for a better life from the example of the United States. They look to us for hope and for help, and the real question before you, before all young Americans, is whether we will help bring about that future or whether we will not help and stand by.In such a challenging world, such a fantastic and dangerous world, we will not find answers in old dogmas, by repreating outworn slogans, or fighting on ancient battlegrounds against fading enemies long after the real struggle has moved on. We oursleves much change in order to master change. We must rethink our old ideas and beliefs, before they capture and before they destroy us.
We should all remember what we are fighting for.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/2/193050/295/129/618201
The War Hits Home For This Liberal Elitist
I discovered this morning that one of my closest friends and confidants is being deployed to Iraq. The spectrum of emotions I have gone through today is unlike anything I have ever experienced before. I fear for my friend, I worry for his safety, I shudder at the possibility of a young life without such a friend, and I feel guilt at the selfish emotions coursing through my thoughts, when I am not the one destined for the battlefield, and I am not the one putting myself in harm’s way.
I cannot begin to imagine the feelings of mothers or fathers, brothers or sisters, wives, husbands or children, who are seeing men and women whom they have watched grow as adults, as siblings, as partners, or as parents being shipped off for their first or second or third deployments. Nor can I begin to understand, the grief of those who have lost their loved ones in this war.
My friend is a Marine, and I feel that part of me should carry a bit of bizarre happiness that he is getting a taste of war that, as an officer, he so desires. I know that no matter what I feel, this is what he wants: the chance to prove himself, to live up to the full measure of a United States Marine, to gain the experience he needs as a leader of Marines, and to fulfill a selfless desire, for which he has transformed his entire life, to serve this country. But I cannot help but let a feeling of dread slowly creep into my heart.
When I heard the news, I canceled dinner with my parents, to prove my elitism, the reservation was at their country club (my dad, someone who waited in line to view the casket of President Kennedy, and my mom, who remarked to me that, in looking back, she can’t believe there was a time when the segregation of blacks and whites was ever acceptable, understood). Instead, I went to my local headquarters for Senator Obama’s campaign to participate in phone banking in the hopes of bring other volunteers to our cause.
I know that Senator Obama is not perfect. I know that he may not live up to all our hopes and dreams for our society. I know that many have donated money they can’t afford to give, time they cannot afford to spare, and hearts they cannot stand to see broken again, to the campaigns of Senator Clinton, Senator Edwards, Congressman Paul, Senator Biden, Senator Dodd, Congressman Kucinich, and Governor Richardson. I know there are still wounds that must be healed among us. But I also know, that Senator Obama represents our last hope for a leader that will work toward a more generous nation, a more compassionate nation, and a nation willing to listen to the desires of its people, whom have made this country worth dying for.
There is nothing, realistically, we can disrespect about Senator McCain’s service to this country, no matter what the war. But we cannot ignore his alliance to an administration that has created so much suffering for Americans from all corners of society. We will have time to debate the details of a new direction for this country, but for now, we must put aside that which divides us in order to forge any chance at realizing that which unites us as human beings and as Americans.
2000, 2004 Redux
From http://www.gregpalast.com/:
by Greg Palast
In swing-state Colorado, the Republican Secretary of State conducted the biggest purge of voters in history, dumping a fifth of all registrations. Guess their color. In swing-state Florida, the state is refusing to accept about 85,000 new registrations from voter drives – overwhelming Black voters.
In swing state New Mexico, HALF of the Democrats of Mora, a dirt poor and overwhelmingly Hispanic county, found their registrations disappeared this year, courtesy of a Republican voting contractor.
In swing states Ohio and Nevada, new federal law is knocking out tens of thousands of voters who lost their homes to foreclosure.
My investigations partner spoke directly to Barack Obama about it. (When your partner is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., candidates take your phone call.) The cool, cool Senator Obama told Kennedy he was “concerned” about the integrity of the vote in the Southwest in particular.
He’s concerned. I’m sweating.
It’s time SOMEBODY raised the alarm about these missing voters; not to save Obama’s candidacy – journalists should stay the heck away from partisan endorsements – but raise the alarm to save our sick democracy.
And that somebody is YOU. Joining with US, the Palast investigative team.
So This is What They Talked About In History Class
Just what it means to be filled with pride, not out of a common tragedy, but of a common hope:
They chanted U..S..A
When We Lose in November.
On a cool January morning in 2009, John McCain will be sworn in as the next President of the United States. Many first time voters will scoff at the idea of ever returning to the polls, racial divides in this country will broaden with the fallout on our city streets yet to be seen, a young generation of activists, politicians, and civic workers will be dealt a sickening blow, the world will shudder and the insolvency of an entire party will only be confirmed, as the Democratic party, who holds the only real hope of so many, shakes its head at the finality of another November defeat. Those, who gave much of their time, money, and hearts, will be left to question the possibility of ever starting over. The left will look for scapegoats, continuing the bickering and screaming echoing from the internet to cable news that helped to undo much of what so many had achieved, while conservatives will again denounce the “weakness of liberals” and the inevitable failures of their policies.
The future of Iraq will be unknown, the threat of future wars unclear. The economy will continue to collapse under the severely flawed economics of President John McCain. We will discover new ways to tear at our Earth for resources, and shamelessly pollute her waters and fields.
The grave problems facing this nation are not the concern of a single ideology. If these three platforms of war, the economy, and the environment united us behind a candidate, some passionately, some tentatively, and others begrudgingly, then these three causes must keep us together till the fall. And if Obama’s trip to the Middle East is any indication, then he is are last best hope for an intelligent, level headed leader. I just hope he is as promising as I think he is.
Calling off the Liberal Pitbulls: Why we need everyone for November
The Republicans can still win, McCain can still win, and the destructive deadly policies of this Bush Administration can still continue.
Think of this, as you call for your donations back, as you attack Senator Obama, rightfully or not, and relegate him to the “Boy Junior Senator from Illinois.”
The results of November are not set in stone. There is still a long fight, a long battle left, if we are to take back even a part of Washington for the people who have dedicated themselves to this movement and who have invested so much of their time, their efforts, and their dwindling finances in a common effort to elect a man the next President of the United States. A man, who two hundred years ago would have been brought to this country as a slave bound in shackles and mastered into servitude, a man brave enough to speak to our hopes and dreams for this country, a man who has demonstrated his political abilities, in only a short time, in the halls of national government, a man, who despite the racial divides that still exist in this country, who despite the political divides that tear us apart, who despite the dangers that threaten our country, continues to send forth a message of peace in our time.
Now, we are all trying to shatter this man, just as the wrong elements of our media and our government are shamelessly attacking his motives at every turn.
Why? Over FISA, over a rejection of public financing, over an appeal to faith based education? Or nothing more than questions, once upon at time, reserved for a President, not a candidate?
Yes, there is fear and distrust, ingrained in us from the traitorous policies of Clinton. The appeal to hope, for the reality of centrist political power at any cost, has been the downfall of many potential Presidents, and a knee jerk fear for all liberals seeking a savior. We want a Kennedy, not a Clinton.
But with the array of dangers facing our nation and our world, we can no longer afford to be simply concerned with our lofty, and at times elitist, liberal ambitions. There is an undeniable growing dissent among the moderate middle class of America, that their voices will be absent from this rising current of “thought and action.” They demonstrated this distrust in the industrial centers of this nation, from Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan and we would be foolish and arrogant not to address their needs. The harsh truth of present America is that the predominantly white middle class, who as Senator Obama so eloquently put, “feels no advantage” from their race, is suffering tremendously. The loss of jobs, foreclosures of homes, the brunt both in blood and taxes of the failed policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, threaten to erode the back bone of a country aiming to stand tall once again amongst the societies of the world.
We have been divide from on another, for too long, by the media and political establishment. The desire for a free market, the alarm at the size of the federal government, the outcry that civil liberties should be protected from government intrusion are all causes that both Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, independents and moderates, libertarians and Green party members, minorities and whites, the young and the old, those serving in the military and the ones who want to bring them home, are causes every American must work to achieve. We have all been through enough upheaval, enough chaos, to warrant serious self questioning of our own political ideals and worldview. A view shaped away, if still influenced, from what was instilled in our upbringing. Thus, when I say I am a Liberal or I say you are a Conservative, I am aligning our ideals with long developed, nuanced political philosophies that encompass a wide range of citizens from all classes, races, and ages. In some cases, there have been Democratic Presidents and candidates that have been strong Liberals just as there have been Republican Presidents and candidates whose ideals have matched strongly with Conservative ideals. But just as the American versions of these political ideologies have changed over the centuries so have the parties that have claimed to represent these centers of political thought.
The majority of Americans have no voice in politics, having been failed by the Neo-Conservative Republican party and the listless, spineless “Moderate” Democrats. The idea that the purist of American Liberals and Conservatives could one day run this nation is an inspiring and seemingly impossible dream, yet it remains a goal that we might still achieve. For now, we must untie together in the hope that this time, we can find a politician willing to make concessions from both sides of the isle, in an attempt, to fix the internal problems of this nation, in the hopes that we can lead again, in the global challenges that threaten us all.
I am sick if this. Where was this “hard hitting” journalism when the country was on the brink of war, where was this outrage when the Patriot Act was passed, where were these tough questions and nitpicking after September 11th. No where, at least that mattered. As Americans, we have the permanent stain of blood on our hands, and we have a responsibility to do what we can to right it, and now, we are now faced with the opportunity for an achievement unprecedented in world history.
Why do I have the arrogance to write under this banner of Bobby Kennedy? Because I am arrogant. Because I identify, personally, with someone unafraid to stand for what he believed in, and despite his shortcomings, his mistakes, his reputation as ruthless, arrogant, and a “rich prick” he still had the moral courage to speak out against these mistakes, the injustices, and the ills of the world. Someone who “saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.”
Because even at 25, I still have trouble reading, through tears in my eyes, these words:
City Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio
April 5, 1968
This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.
It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one – no matter where he lives or what he does – can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.
Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr’s cause has ever been stilled by an assassin’s bullet.
No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.
Whenever any American’s life is taken by another American unnecessarily – whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence – whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.
“Among free men,” said Abraham Lincoln, “there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs.”
Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.
Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.
Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.
This is the breaking of a man’s spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.
I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.
We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers.
Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.
We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children’s future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.
Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.
But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.
Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.
All bets are off after November, but we need to get him there first.
Dr. Hopelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Obama
This world demands the qualities of youth; not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease – Robert F. Kennedy, Day of Affirmation Address
It all seems to be unraveling now, as the hysteria of Barack Hussein Obama has finally hit the left. The gnashing of teeth that began with a rejection of public finance, grew to grumbles with the appeal to faith based initiatives, has now peaked to a roar of moral outrage from the left over FISA compromises. Even former ESPN anchor Keith Olbermann took time for a special comment lecturing the “Junior Senator.” The second largest group within the Senator’s own internet community, started by a University of Virginia law student, demands return of donations and assails the Harvard Law graduates’ apparent retreat on the issue of Telecomm immunity.
But on his website built by a team of intelligent developers and the Honorable Senator from Illinois’ own vision of community building, the dissension is allowed to flourish. The possibility is real that helping faith based schooling and school vouchers could help the poor, and particularly poor blacks, achieve a better quality of education. Even Oblermann, with dramatic camera shifts and all, admits in the same special comment that Obama may see the far reaching implications, and understand the law of this bill well enough to know, that FISA would not ban any criminal accountability to the telecomms and may yet enable a President Obama to investigate, with his own justice department, the high crimes and treason of the current administration.
It was not very long ago that a breath of fresh air was blown into our collective conscious. We marveled at the youthful Senator’s ability to inspire us and even laughed at times he outsmarted us, as we watched the surprise defeat of the Clinton machine, by what we saw and felt was our own voices being heard. America, for all the right reasons, was once again at the front page of newspapers all over the world. It is time to put an end to our culture of fear. We must understand that not every ambition can be implemented overnight. The government stands more corrupt, more invasive, more exploited than maybe any before it and, in the end, our means are justified if we wish to wrestle the power of this nation out of the hands of the policies that have hurt so many people from all areas of the United States. If this is truly our time, we can perhaps rejoice in the notion that the Obama campaign can be so financially fueled by an Army of average Americans, sacrificing what they can to a movement they believe in. The idea that we the people can change the world once again, is both beautiful and exciting. That in a wave of mutual movement, from all races and creeds and religions, from all classes, from all corners of this great society, we can tear down the old powers of Washington that have failed us too many times. The hard work and firm faith in our abilities as a country, put us on the precipice of great change in the face of greater challenges.
These moments give us pause for uncertainty, that our doubts in our ability to change the halls of Capitol Hill are still real. We have been lied to before, by men and women, who have played to our hearts, our ideals, our hope for community, only to turn their backs once our wills propelled them to office. We must be ready for a long national reconstruction from the pain and fear of the last eight years. We must remain vigilant, as we watch with persistence and pride, at the first steps being taken in a new chapter of American history, one whose beginning and conclusion are unknown, but what we hope, is not its last. For now all we can do is believe again, if only for a little while, that the highest of our dreams can still be achieved. That in this movement of action with an imperfect candidate, we may find our last best hope for peace and progress in our time. Great leadership carries with it a responsibility to those less fortunate, those less privileged, those forced to scratch tooth and nail for a voice in our society. It is to our fellow Americans, whom public servants must swear to protect, it is to global societies struggling for peace or a place at the table, which we must dedicate ourselves. But if we can mobilize ourselves to this common cause, behind a common candidate, we can carve out a healthy place in society, for not just our own citizens and children, but for our fellow men and women around the world in a noble effort to confront the problems that threaten our very ways of life.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/3/44526/50614/306/545817
To The 60s Generation
No words can describe the impact that is still being felt today from the movements and minds of the 1960s and early 1970s. Many of the twenty somethings, who plaster their cars and apartments and chests with enough merchandise to fund any movement, are inspired by the same vinyls, books, film, and leaders that in your fight you helped bring to the forefront. There is still, and perhaps always will be, a romantic notion, and for the younger generations a certain level of envy, towards the history of the 1960s and the shadow it casts on modern culture that makes, even something as remarkable as the Obama campaign seem manufactured, or at least, falling short of the epic movements of your era. We may never know the fear of a draft, that any one of us could be so directly faced with war despite our wishes. We may never come as close as you did to nuclear war. We may never see the social upheavals and civil strife that your generation endured. And, we may yet never even know victory in the face of it all, as you achieved. In the bravery of your generation, we can also find guidance for how to challenge a system that seems set against the people of this country and the world. We can learn from your many successes, and we can learn from your failures. But only if you offer your hands,
since here is the world we inherited from you, sensationalized twenty four hours a day:
Where our innocence was lost, not by an unreal assassination, but by the unreal footage of an attack on our mainland, something unseen since the War of 1812.
Where our conspiracies speak not to one unthinkable murder, but to thousands of our own and hundreds of thousands abroad.
Where love is banned, based on moral popularity.
Where there still exist inequalities for women and minorities.
Where a group of voluntary troops, in a wave not seen since World War II, who represent a much broader spectrum of the population, have locked into endless service. While the less fortunate of our society must again be forced to help fight the ongoing wars as the front lines stretch.
Where we can not afford seven more years to our Vietnam, nor our Korea.
Where cops don’t need guns and the law to silence us, just a taser.
Where gangs fight open war on our streets.
Where, despite the words of Bobby Kennedy, we learn fear, distrust, and to look at our fellow men as threats.
Where the nuclear powers are many and their stability unsure.
Where Nixon would be an upgrade.
Where our economy is in chaos, and we must face the realities of unaffordable medicine, or the inability to drive to work or interviews, crumbling bridges, brownouts, and dirty water.
And where the possibility, that world faces very radical change to its very climate, looms over us all, threatening the very future of our species,
with no shelter to hide in.
Obama, The Iran “Threat”, and the Kennedy Legacy
For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed. – John F. Kennedy Inaugural Address
Senator Barack Obama has come under fire recently for his harsh language toward Iran, stating that Iran presented a threat to the region and to our ally, Israel, and that the military option was still on the table. There are those who rightful criticize Obama, for using the same harsh rhetoric of military swagger that has brought us to the current conditions and chaos we are witness to in the tragedy of Iraq, a war both parties are stained with their share of blood.
What we need now, is not a President too firmly entrenched in the failed, weak philosophies of either fractured party. The rise of one corporate, militant driven candidate to replace another, betrays the passionate desires of the people that have placed Senator Obama on a road of historic proportions. Our involvement in the Middle East needs to be shattered and built a new without the luxury of time. Committing our sailors, our pilots, our solders, and our Marines, already exhausted by two difficult conflicts in the region, to a third war could be suicide.
However, the United States, as it attempts to earn back its reputation in the International community, needs to take a serious, calculated look at Iran along with many leaders from all corners of the world, just as we need to reexamine our position with Israel, and Obama’s call for diplomacy has been welcomed and applauded, and we must remind him of this pledge at every turn.
However, there is much more to Kennedy’s address than the few sound bites that still make it famous:
So let us begin anew—remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate. Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us. Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection and control of arms—and bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations. Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce. Let both sides unite to heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah—to “undo the heavy burdens … and to let the oppressed go free.” And if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved. All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.
Some foolish right wing critics, when they are not spreading unbiased smears of clear bigotry, have claimed Senator Obama is running for Carter’s second term, an in effort to illicit some sort of fear amongst more intelligent conservatives, who understand the problems facing the nation and might be suspect to anything too liberal. But the most obvious comparisons, which many of these same critics are fully aware, come not with Obama and Carter, but with Obama and Kennedy, even on the surface; both charismatic, both attractive, both entrenched in the values of modern liberalism, and both carrying with them a tide of youthful and populist support. Obama has the support of the eldest of Kennedy family, Caroline Kennedy, many of the younger offspring and parts of the Kennedy Clan, and above all, the early endorsement of a dieing Ted. Obama has his own young speech writer, shows the same passionate following of both blacks and young whites, and reminds so many of his power of the will and strong dedication to public service.
However, despite the superficial qualities, many of which Bill Clinton possessed, Senator Obama did not demonstrate the moral courage of a Kennedy, until his now famous, “A More Perfect Union” speech. How long have we waited to see a Presidential candidate, brave the risk of political wrath, to meet a complex issue intelligently and eloquently? The speech itself, has already given Barack a spot in American rhetorical history, but it also takes us to a time, many of us only know from history books and grainy videos, when politicians were noble and daring: a stark shot of political honesty in an age of political pandering and perhaps proof enough for some, this man is ready for the difficult undertaking of President.
In Obama’s words there stands a warning, that perhaps his is no more than Clinton’s third term, but perhaps it is time to stop our national obsession and search for sound bites. Senator Obama is a brilliant politician who has earned our respect and, for many, admiration, and perhaps we can allow for a time, to watch this inspirational leader at work, before screaming at a chance to tear it down. Let us just now begin.
