Obama Delivers Passionate Speech on Race in America

Amid the race and gender firestorm that has recently engulfed the Democratic presidential nomination contest, Sen. Barack Obama today delivered a heartfelt and passionate speech focused race relations in our country and on his own experiences as a biracial American. Watch and read the full text of the speech here.

The man nailed it on the head. There is no doubt about that. Already well-known as a great orator, Obama's speech today has only served to enhance that reputation. His assessment that "race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now... that we would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality" is spot on. He acknowledges that race is the terrain of American society that we have not yet conquered when he says, "the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect."

It was good to see him address race. I apologize if this is an inaccurate assessment, but it seems that he has somewhat just glazed over the subject in this campaign, with the occasional word but no in-depth speech like this. It was a breath of fresh air to hear him say that race is not something we need to dodge as a campaign subject, it is something we need to discuss in a calm and politically correct fashion.

I implore all of you to read the transcript and watch the speech.

Does Experience = Staleness?

They always say if you want to be this or that, you have to start at the bottom and work your way up for about 10-15 years. Supposedly this makes you better off for whatever job you're trying to do. But could it be, that the old dinosaurs at the top who waited their turn, became stale in the process? Did they lose their creative spark and driving motivation to get things done as they sat around and learned the process?

Obama may think so. That's why "He was running for president even as he was still getting lost in the Capitol’s corridors," according to this article. But who really needs to know where all the corridors are in the first place? Because the only thing waiting around in those corridors are potential enemies.

Though maybe more time in Senate would help prevent time wasted as President learning on the job as he goes, also maybe prevent lives lost and so on, but who really knows? What if he were just do a term of VP and then run for President? Would that make everyone happy saying he's inexperienced?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/us/politics/09obama.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&ref=politics