A year ago, on this blog I have been so privileged to participate in, I posted an entry posing the question, ‘Wouldn’t Abraham Lincoln be proud today?’ Now, on this February 12, 2009, the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth, we can say that, indeed, he would.
If Lincoln could return to visit us, what he would find most surprising about Barack Obama’s election to the highest office in the land would most likely be the capital ‘D’ next to his name. In Lincoln’s day, ‘Republican’ and ‘Democrat’ meant something very different from what they do today. The G.O.P. was initially sparked and founded by the anti-slavery movement, as many amateur political historian readers will be aware. It was long after Lincoln was called ‘Home’, precipitated by an assassin’s bullet, that the Democratic Party came to represent the down-trodden and others who in so many ways have been marginalized, disadvantaged or neglected by the larger society. Yet, on this date in 1809, the nation's first Republican president was born to, let's face it, a poor family in a backwoods Kentucky log cabin.
In all fairness to history, Lincoln might also be initially shocked by Barack Obama’s skin color as a President of the United States. Lincoln was, after all, a man of his time. At the outset of the Civil War, his prime objective was to hold the Union together. Only later, amid all the fraternal bloodletting of that conflict did he see the fundamental need to take his country to a higher place and emancipate the slaves throughout the land. But, it wouldn’t take sharp-minded Lincoln long to convert that shock into amazed delight. I would add that it might also, in his case, give him a sense of great humility that his own quest to create a more perfect union could result in a man who would have been held in chains in the Confederacy now occupying the seat of the leader of the United States of America that Lincoln saved. In fact, I contend that it is in that very humility combined with an extraordinary compassion cited by those who knew him and can be seen so clearly in the face that stares back at us from the portrait photos we have of Lincoln that the true greatness of ‘Honest Abe’ lies.
As a supporter of Barack Obama before the Iowa caucuses and even before he took to the same steps of the Old State House in Springfield, Illinois to declare his candidacy for President of the United States where Lincoln began his own long journey to the White House, I feel honored to be a witness to the service of a President Obama during our historic time we all share today.
Abraham Lincoln would be proud of his country today, yet, at the same time, humbled by his own significant role in charting its course to come closer to fulfilling the promises contained in the creed put to paper by the Founding Fathers. Furthermore, like President Obama is now from the same office Lincoln held nearly 150 years ago, he would be well aware of the many great tasks, unfinished and yet-to-be-begun, that lie ahead.
Mr. Pitts,
We took the plunge, and now we are throwing (gently lobbing) what eggs we can into the Obama basket. Click on this picture to read our reasons for sending Barack Obama financial support. Once you are viewing the letter close up, any of the blue underlined links will take you to reference pages on each topic.
We are about to travel again to stay in Kansas for some weeks/months to be with vulnerable family members (including ourselves...). With tools on the web, we will stay active to work for Barack Obama's election!
For peace,
Laura & Tom Karlin
Greetings,
I've kept copies of the March 18th More Perfect Union speech in my car as well as my backpack to give to friends and potential converts, and since I'm tied up in bumper to bumper traffic for a while both ways to and from work I've re-read it at least a dozen times.
Every time I read it, something else jumps out at me that reminds me why I'm supporting Barack. I'm convinced that the speech will go down in history as a significant statement on current conditions, and it's my hope that it becomes a basis for real discussions on how to move this country forward in terms of dealing with improving the relations between diverse people in our country and around the world.
Peace,
Rich
Alright, lots to talk about this week. There was the Wright controversy, Hilary's Bosnia blunder, and the Richardson endorsement.
First, obviously, I have to expound on the Wright issue. The internet, has, I believe, ended the age of the sound bite. Thank God, or Al Gore, or DARPA, whomever you prefer. Nowadays, when the broadcast and cable news media throw a couple of short clips of someone saying something deplorable, as with Rev. Wright; one can go onto the internet, bring up YouTube and find something like this.
While it certainly doesn't excuse Rev. Wright's statements, it does put some in a little more context. And that's one sermon out of somewhere around four thousand, six hundred eighty. Quite clearly he wasn't saying these anti-American things every week or else he wouldn't have had a congregation. Not to mention that in that particular sermon he did have a point, and a point which I think we as Americans should acknowledge.
After the Wright flap, Senator Obama delivered perhaps the most important speech made so far in this 21st Century. As Jon Stewart exclaimed: "A prominent American politician spoke about race as though we were adults!".
Second, let's talk about this. Wow. Now, as far as politics are concerned, I'm fairly jaded. I've seen lots of lies and scandals and gaffs in the past twenty years. But I have never seen any lie so ridiculously blatent as this. Not only ridiculous and blatent, but utterly pointless.
Hilary keeps trying to come up with a silver bullet "Commander-In-Chief" test that she has passed, but Senator Obama has not. First, she said she'd been in Washington longer. Obama countered by saying that wasn't neccessarily a good thing. Then she claimed that she was more of a morning person. That didn't work either. Now she's claiming that being shot at or making a hostile landing in a developing country is the test. But not only has Senator Obama done that as well, but she's outright fabricated a dramatic tale in which she's the victim of the Secret Service("...too dangerous, the President couldn't go, so send the First Lady."), poor military planning and Bosnian militants.
Senator Clinton claimed that there was supposed to be a greeting ceremony, but that there wasn't, and they were told to run with their heads down to the motorcade. This can clearly be seen to be a fabrication at 0:10 and 0:25 of the first video, where the greeting ceremony, with the plane on the tarmac in the background, can clearly be seen. WOW.
And finally, there were a couple of endorsements, most significantly from Governor Bill Richardson, proving that Dave Chappele can see the future.
19 Years, 51 Weeks, 5 Hours, 30 Minutes Old and Illegerate No More,Brandon William Wicks
19 Years, 51 Weeks, 5 Hours, 30 Minutes Old and Illegerate No More,
Brandon William Wicks
Hey everyone here is a link to Thank Gov. Richardson for standing up for Barack Obama. Please email him and thank him for his support at a very important time in our election process.
Thanks-
Audio: http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=88478467&m=88484093
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWe7wTVbLUU
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
By watching Good Morning America with Peggy Noonan and Juan Williams, I saw the camps of responses to Barack Obama's "More Perfect Union" speech in Philadephia:
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4479723
One side will continue to hold on to criticism and repeat it over and over and fester anger. The other side will choose to denounce the anger, gather the guilty, and go forward. To me, this frames our choice for the coming election; do we perpetuate hate or embrace compassion?
This is a comment that I've been posting on the occasional right-wing blog when someone bloviates and nitpicks Sen. Obama's magnificent speech yesterday. ----------------------------------------It seems to me that your quibbling and nitpicking at Sen. Obama's address is motivated by his color; not black or white, but blue, instead of red. Some Republican partisans can't bring themselves to admit that the best candidate to be our next president could be riding a donkey.
You are in a dwindling minority, friends. There are thousands of us now that are sick of the Republican Party's corruption and philosphical backsliding (hello trillion-dollar deficits, endemic corruption and the largest new entitlement since Medicare -- under a Republican watch?!?). We're backing Sen. Obama's campaign now, because he's a leader that we might not always agree with, but we trust he'll hear our side in good faith.
This is a man with two children, who flies back and forth from Washington to Chicago every week; who didn't uproot his young family to Washington. Yet he has never missed a dance recital or PTA meeting. Now you say he is supposed to take a meeting with his pastor every time he disagrees with the sermon? Please. Sen. Obama's political priorities might not match mine, but his personal ones are the same, and I applaud that. His time in Chicago is precious, and his family deserves all of it.
Sen. Obama didn't say that his grandmother and his pastor are equivalent. He pointed out that all of us at sometime have reacted to or even participated in the poisonous racial undercurrent in our society. To disown Rev. Wright would be falling back on the safe, gutless politics of the last generation. I applaud the fact that Sen. Obama didn't throw his pastor under the bus. It shows loyalty to and respect for the man who brought him to salvation in Jesus Christ. He owes the man his everlasting soul; unless your Christianity is just a posture, you must respect that. It is further proof that he's doing things differently; even under extreme duress, he's not just another politician.
But all is not lost. When you're tired of your partisan tantrums, you're welcome to join us at the table. We're going to be talking about how to control the cost of healthcare. As any entrepeneur can tell you, it's crushing the American economy. If you can refrain from the name-calling, you'll have a place. Otherwise, you're just relegating yourself to the childrens' table, where you can play with your red and blue fingerpaints. When it comes to picking leaders, some of us are colorblind.
Sincerely,Michael Blackburn
