The Sunday Magazine, in a piece written by James Traub, discusses an element of the Senator's candidacy that is a large reason why many of us in the AAPI community support him. As the economy becomes an increasingly global marketplace, as our security interests stretch across all corners of the world, it is very appealing to imagine our commander-in-chief, our face to the world, has a background and a cultural understanding that sets him apart from any candidate that has run for president in our history. Indeed, many of us cannot imagine a better way to turn the page on cowboy diplomacy than electing a president who is at ease on the international stage.
Here's an excerpt of the piece:
"If I am the face of American foreign policy and American power,” Barack Obama mused not long ago aboard his campaign plane, “as long as we are also making prudent strategic decisions, handling emergencies, crises and opportunities in the world in an intelligent and sober way. . . .” He stopped. He wanted to make sure he got this just right, and he had got a little caught up in rebutting the claim, which Hillary Clinton has artfully advanced, that he is not prepared to handle emergencies. Obama stopped picking at his grilled salmon in order to stare out at the sky for a few moments. “I think,” he said, in that deep and measured voice of his, “that if you can tell people, ‘We have a president in the White House who still has a grandmother living in a hut on the shores of Lake Victoria and has a sister who’s half-Indonesian, married to a Chinese-Canadian,’ then they’re going to think that he may have a better sense of what’s going on in our lives and in our country. And they’d be right.”For the full article, click here.
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