Don’t compel Obama to make a speech. Don’t give him any excuse to do so. I thought that was the first principle.

But no, the Clintons will never learn. The opposition to change will permanently put up fight. Now, see what they have unleashed –a magnificent and monstrous masterpiece.

Finally, they forced him to make his acceptance speech months before the Democratic Party’s Convention in Danvers . Oh well, good for him - bad for the Clintons .

I was driving when he began to speak. At one point I had to pull off the road and stop completely. I was not fainting or anything like that. I just wanted to look around so that I would remember where I was when I heard that speech.

Many years from now, even if he never made it to the presidency, history would never forget what Obama said in Philadelphia on Tuesday, March 18, 2006. My children, my grandchildren and my great grandchildren will all have the speech as their reference point.

For yesterday, Obama established a new reference point in race discussion.

I had always thought I knew Obama, being that I have two little Obamas running around in my house. But after listening to his speech, I was shocked that he was deeper than I ever thought. When I got home, I watched the speech with my little Obamas. In-between their chant of “Obama, Obama,” they giggled as if they understood what he was saying.

What I hope would be clear to everyone who watched the speech was that only Barrack Obama, a son of a Kenyan man and a white Kansas woman, could have articulated the issue of race in that brilliant manner. He spoke to all people in a way nobody had done in a generation.

Obama is not perfect. He is definitely not the messiah, in spite of all the hallelujah the heavens sing. But we do not need a perfect president. We do not need a messiah. By his life, his experiences and his gifts, he is positioned to transform America and the world. And that, more than anything else, is all we are asking for.

He spoke with courage and conviction. He showed leadership. Something you are sure you can never get from the Clintons , even at 3.00 AM in the morning.

Though Obama makes it look easy, the business of selling hope is tough. It is as tough as the business of selling shoes. There are so many who are very satisfied with their old shoes- its holes, worn heels, torn leathers, and loose threads. For them, the comfort of the old feeds their cynicism about the possibilities as well as the initial discomfort of the new.

Listening to him speak, Obama dispelled once again the notion that a people who are committed to change have no power to will such change into existence. He proved again the age old wisdom which counseled that “we do not know how much we need to know before we know how little we really know.”

I bet you, if the Constitution had allowed George W. Bush, after listening to the speech, he would have simply picked up his single thin file off the Oval Office desk and asked Obama to take over, saying as he entered Marine One for the very last time, “What the hell was I doing there, anyway?”

In just one speech, Obama wiped away the memory of the entire tortuous eight years of George W. Bush’s administration. Imagine what he would do in his inaugural address. Imagine.

I was almost saying America is back when all of a sudden I listened to the rest of the news.

Oh, I sighed. It is still a bushworld.

Robot  Villager

# 1 Don’t compel Obama to make a speech. Don’t give him any excuse to do so. I thought that was the first principle. ...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 22.09.2008 09:31