Sometimes I get seriously pissed when I come here to read posts.
Not because I don't expect people to disagree with my viewpoint. I generally love a good healthy, reasoned debate. Unfortunately, for some reasoned doesn't come into play.
Come with me for a ride here. I left my home in Cleveland Thursday night to news that McCain and Obama were tighter than ever when it comes to the General Election. Most times I can dispense with such news with a simple reality: `'It's frakkin' July.''
But this all got under my skin. I don't know why. It just did. It probably had a lot to do with listening to the bubble-headed bleach blondes and other pundits. Thankfully, I traveled to one of my favorite cities in this country - Washington D.C.
D.C. is one of few cities - Boston and Philadelphia being the others - that truly remind me of the greatness and promise of this country. My big mistake is as a journalist, I travel with a laptop. Being a news junkie comes with the job, even when you don't cover politics. So naturally I check in here and other political blogs.
What do I discover? A recommended diary nitpicking with Republican language Obama's trip to the Middle East and Europe. The diarist isn't enamored of the presumptive Democratic nominee which is their prerogative.
What I don't get, however, is how they rationalized their `'concern.'' `'What is Obama doing over there when he should be over here talking domestic policy?''
`'How dare he set it up so his prayer on the Wailing Wall will be leaked.'' And the one that always clobbers me is the one about Obama's ability to speak publicly. The diarist took issue with that ability as do many others. As I learned as 12 years of being a movie critic, those who can't do, criticize. Yup.
Yet the diarist failed to realize one thing - all the truly great presidents possessed the innate ability to move people with words. Words inspire. They move people and emotions.
Washington D.C. helped me to remember that here:
<>The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough to those who have too little.<>
And here:
<>"God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Establish a law for educating the common people. This it is the business of the state and on a general plan."<>
I have little problem with a person being skeptical, but to pile on a person for the ability to speak eloquently and move the masses seems more than a bit cynical to me.
Imagine what this country had been like had men like FDR and Thomas Jefferson couldn't inspire with words. The failed economic policies that led to the Great Depression may have lasted longer. And me, a black guy who lives his dream life, could quite possibly still be in chains.
To those who find the `'soaring rhetoric'' a bit much too take, don't listen or read. The rest of us will enjoy it and many of us will heed the call to action by the person who speaks them. To be quite honest, there's little that's cynical about that.
For some of us, Obama and, yes, his words remind us of what this country can and should be. During the past eight years, many Americans seem to have forgotten that. If you ask me that's part of our problem here and abroad.
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