Check out Obama's laptop. I love the Pac Man sticker placement.
President Geek.
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Barack Obama
What I like about Barack Obama's speech today [full text] is that it challenges us. How refreshing. Instead of feeding people what they want to hear with essentialist arguments and bifurcate statements, he challenged us to seek to understand nuance and complexity. Whether we the American public accept this task remains to be seen.
Mike linked to a really fascinating article from the New Republic that does a great job of cutting through the smokescreen of people dismissing Obama's candidacy as mere lofty words that lacks backbone and a foundation. Instead, when examining the foreign policy wonks and economic oracles guiding Obama's platform, the picture that emerges after the proverbial credentials, degrees, and publications, is a team distinct for as the article states, this: The Obamanauts are decidedly non-ideological. Whichever way your political leanings bend you should read this article. Kaizar and Co. at Newstrust has more.
I can't believe I didn't see this until Moye posted it. It's a funny spoof of the music video created in support of Obama that re-imagines it as one for McCain. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gwqEneBKUs]
Kaizar, the Associate Editor over at Newstrust.net (an awesome site for any news whore or...whoever just wants to be an informed citizen), brought to my attention an interesting Atlantic Monthly piece, the current feature on Newstrust, about the release of Patti Solis Doyle from the Hillary Clinton campaign team. Read this denouncement from the article:
Rather than punish Solis Doyle or raise questions about her fitness to lead, Clinton chose her to manage the presidential campaign for reasons that should now be obvious: above all, Clinton prizes loyalty and discipline, and Solis Doyle demonstrated both traits, if little else. This suggests to me that for all the emphasis Clinton has placed on executive leadership in this campaign, her own approach is a lot closer to the current president’s than her supporters might like to admit.
I think Toni Morrison is one of the most brilliant and seminal writers of our era. If you haven't read any of her work....then you need to get on that. Anyway, here is her open letter to Obama (her first public endorsement of a candidate) which I'm printing here in full:
Dear Senator Obama,This letter represents a first for me–a public endorsement of a Presidential candidate. I feel driven to let you know why I am writing it. One reason is it may help gather other supporters; another is that this is one of those singular moments that nations ignore at their peril. I will not rehearse the multiple crises facing us, but of one thing I am certain: this opportunity for a national evolution (even revolution) will not come again soon, and I am convinced you are the person to capture it.
May I describe to you my thoughts?
I have admired Senator Clinton for years. Her knowledge always seemed to me exhaustive; her negotiation of politics expert. However I am more compelled by the quality of mind (as far as I can measure it) of a candidate. I cared little for her gender as a source of my admiration, and the little I did care was based on the fact that no liberal woman has ever ruled in America. Only conservative or “new-centrist” ones are allowed into that realm. Nor do I care very much for your race[s]. I would not support you if that was all you had to offer or because it might make me “proud.”
In thinking carefully about the strengths of the candidates, I stunned myself when I came to the following conclusion: that in addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don’t see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom. It is too bad if we associate it only with gray hair and old age. Or if we call searing vision naivete. Or if we believe cunning is insight. Or if we settle for finessing cures tailored for each ravaged tree in the forest while ignoring the poisonous landscape that feeds and surrounds it. Wisdom is a gift; you can’t train for it, inherit it, learn it in a class, or earn it in the workplace–that access can foster the acquisition of knowledge, but not wisdom.
When, I wondered, was the last time this country was guided by such a leader? Someone whose moral center was un-embargoed? Someone with courage instead of mere ambition? Someone who truly thinks of his country’s citizens as “we,” not “they”? Someone who understands what it will take to help America realize the virtues it fancies about itself, what it desperately needs to become in the world?
Our future is ripe, outrageously rich in its possibilities. Yet unleashing the glory of that future will require a difficult labor, and some may be so frightened of its birth they will refuse to abandon their nostalgia for the womb.
There have been a few prescient leaders in our past, but you are the man for this time.
Good luck to you and to us.
Toni Morrison
I could never be as eloquent as Ms. Morrison, but she expresses my thoughts on Obama's transformative and paradigm breaking message that I find so heartening. And Obama is on such a roll that he felt a one sentence reply would suffice:
Toni Morrison has touched a nation with the grace and beauty of her words, and I was deeply moved and honored by the letter she wrote and the support she is giving our campaign.
[Thanks Lauren!]
A conservative group -– Citizens United -– that has produced a film now in distribution attacking Hillary Clinton called “Hillary, the Movie,” has its sights set on a new target: Barack Obama. The group has budgeted about $1 million to produce a documentary film about Mr. Obama that is set to be distributed this summer. At the moment, Citizens United has its researchers poring over Mr. Obama’s records as a community organizer, state legislator and United States senator in the same way that it scoured Mrs. Clinton’s record with a highly critical eye and a sharply conservative point of view.
I hope the mainstream media doesn't jump into the water and legitimize this sure to be swiftboat hack job.
Watch this short explanation provided by this woman behind her decision to switch her support to Barack Obama from Hillary Clinton. Yet another switch. [youtube=http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=OVuMYKs8iJs]