Garrison Keillor on Obama (Salon)

I've been a fan of Keillor's since high school. I like his take on Obama here, especially Obama's "unabashed love of country".

--snip--

It was easier to rebel back when there was a mainstream in this country, which there isn't anymore, just a thousand little niches. Celebrities are people you never heard of, the big TV shows are ones you never watch. Young people leading comfortable middle-class lives embrace gangsta rap as the most outrageous rebellion going, every man a pimp, every woman his chattel, but who gives a rip? Violent stupid ugly stuff, but nobody cares what rappers say, it's just acorns on the roof, because, brother, we're all trotting along to our own drummers now, engrossed in our own iPod. No wonder people keep drifting back into retrospection. They're looking for the beat.

That's the appealing thing about Barack Obama, in addition to his smarts and his résumé. He is an outsider who found the center. He is completely new, a break from the old rhetoric, a guy who doesn't pummel the old straw men or seem put together by pollsters. He has youth, skinniness, blackness, cool intelligence, an unabashed love of country, and it's exciting to imagine him in the White House. He is a rebel who got over himself and discovered the beauty of the American cadence. Not like the Current Occupant, who came from the privileged mainstream and is still flailing against it, the Iraq war his latest attempt to prove that he knows better than Father.

People who are dubious about a Clinton Restoration are mighty taken with Sen. Obama, who seems to hear the drummer the rest of us hear. The beautiful old tune about picking up our feet and redeeming our promise and bringing people back together. Eight years of corruption and deliberate ignorance. Time for the big dogs to move over and let the skinny dog run.

--snip--



http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/05/09/keillor/

he has a knack for highlighting their different strong points without comparing them to each other directly to make either one look bad. Don't know if he's ever mentioned Edwards. He likes Chuck Hagel, but I forgive him because I do too. And he has been BRUTAL on Chimpy (Current Occupant) for years now--he is a national treasure just for that, IMO.

The "Clinton Restoration" line packed a wallop for me.

It's time for a President who loves the constitution so much he has taught constitutional law.

:kick:and recommend.