I have a dream...Congratulations Sen. Obama

It is fitting that Sen. Barack Obama accepts the Democratic Party's presidential nomination tonight. Forty five years after Rev. Martin Luther King gave his monumental "I have a dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial a black man stands where no black man has stood before; at the top of his party's ticket and one step from the office of President of the United States.

From MLK's speech that day:

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.”

And

"When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Congratulations Sen. Obama.













I agree with Sen. Obama on very little but I truly hope he is judged fairly not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character (and his standing on the issues).

Ffffsssttttt…splash

That was the sound of the air going out of Barack Obama’s sails last week following his Pennsylvania primary defeat and then the sound of Rev. Jeremiah Wright being thrown under the keel today.

The presidential hopeful ship of Barack Obama sailed into Pennsylvania waters last week amid what could have been a political perfect storm. For Sen. Hillary Clinton that is. The Keystone state primary was set against the backdrop of the Rev. Wright controversy, renewed interest in the Senator’s ties to former Weather Underground member, William Ayers and Obama’s association with political fundraiser and wire fraud, bribery and extortion defendant Tony Rezko. Not to mention his own disparaging San Francisco comments about middle-class Midwesterners.

All of this didn’t so much fill Clinton’s sails as take the wind out of Obama’s. Pennsylvania’s more blue-collar electorate set up nicely for the former First Lady in the first place and add to it Obama’s recent woes and victory was all but ensured for Clinton.

In the end it may not matter. By throwing the Chicago pastor overboard today Obama more than likely will have righted his ship. Especially in the eyes and opinion of the fawning adoration of the nation’s media.

But let it be a cautionary tale. Let it serve as a reminder of how much we don’t know about the junior Senator from Illinois. People want him to be something different. People want to feel good about him. He is charismatic and witty and smart and people want him to succeed for so many reasons. But just wanting someone to be what you hope for doesn’t make it so.

Hope and change are universal ambitions. But with nothing behind them they are just words.

And remember he just disowned Rev. Wright a mere six weeks after saying he could no more disown his former pastor than he could his own grandmother. Look out grandma and keep your mouth shut.