Barack Obama For A More Perfect Union
One of the best qualities of Barack Obama is his ability to think thematically about the important events and issues of the present. Barack Obama has a deep mind that is able to perceive the patterns of meaning in public debates over policies and politics.
Yes, Obama has the intelligence necessary to understand the literal specifics of policy matters. A lot of people have that kind of mind, however. What a most politicians don’t have, however, is the contemplative strength to understand how the literal specifics of policy come together to create meaning. That rare ability distinguishes Barack Obama from the crowd of Washington policy wonks.
Barack Obama’s skill in grasping the meaning of an historical moment, and seeing how varied issues come together within the moment, was showcased yesterday, in a speech he gave that might be entitled, A More Perfect Union - Obama ‘08.
The speech began with the following paragraph: “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.” Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The beauty in Barack Obama’s mind is that, in introducing this speech, he was simultaneously able to touch upon the direct matter at hand, the state of race relations in the United States, but also upon the fundamental promise of his presidential campaign: A More Perfect Union. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has, from the start, been based upon the promise that the United States of America can do better than it has done in the past, and that we don’t have to settle for a repeat either of the 1990s or of the last eight years. We can do better. America can grow to become a more perfect union.
Yesterday’s speech by Barack Obama was not the typical laundry list of political platitudes that America has become used to hearing. It wasn’t written by committee, either. Barack Obama wrote the speech himself.
Yesterday, Barack Obama proved that he is not only a great speaker. He is a profound thinker as well.
A President who thinks. Wouldn’t that be nice? Please, let’s put Barack Obama in the White House.
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