A Leader in the White House

In electing Barack Obama, America has advanced an authentic leader to the White House.

Although he's an accomplished academic - a former president of the Harvard Law Review; though he's served in the Illinois State Legislature and in the Senate; Mr. Obama's most productive and important qualification is his skill in inspiring and organizing which began with the choice he made after college to go into the communities and work to bring people together to help make a positive difference in their surroundings and in their lives.

Hope is the mantra he's chosen as his organizing point. Throughout his campaign and election Mr. Obama has been ridiculed and even scorned for promoting that one motivating principle, as if that represented the totality of his platform and initiatives. Hope can't feed the hungry, care for the sick and injured, end wars . . . but Mr. Obama wants us to believe in our ability to come to solutions and remedies for these issues and concerns by facing them together without the obstructing veils of cynicism and corrupting self-interest.

With his inauguration unfolding alongside the celebration of the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., Mr. Obama's message of hope reminds us of the nation's reaction to the 'dream' that King expressed in his address at the Lincoln Memorial at the end of the March on Washington.

Martin Luther King, Jr. will always own that moment where he inspired the nation to move past the personal and institutional bigotry, racism, and discrimination which had marked centuries of oppression for people of color in America. Likewise, it is reasonable to argue that the moment and the challenges we face are no less perilous or consequential to the citizens of our country and abroad than the ones we faced in the '60's.

In as inclusive a manner as our nation is capable of, Barack Obama offered his echo of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream in his national campaign - rallying a nation to join him in pulling the levers of political action and reform; rallying us to believe and to have hope for the future. Pulling the nation out of the mess we're in will be a remarkable achievement, if he's successful in his leadership.

There has been so much of a feeling of despair among those of us who worked to change the direction and make-up of our government and the White House over the past eight years, so much hopelessness. There's an overwhelming feeling of accomplishment right now which each and every supporter of Mr. Obama's candidacy can revel in - not the least of which has been his candidacy's ability to make Americans believe in their ability to change the direction of our country through our political action and votes.



Baynard Rustin, a key organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, argued in his book, 'Strategies for Freedom', that for a movement to have a permanent and transforming imprint, it should have a legislative goal attached which will transcend the whims of the emotions of the moment. Describing a different struggle that America faced with the advancement of civil rights, he wrote that:

"Moral fervor can't maintain your movement, nor can the act of participation itself. There must be a genuine commitment to the advancement of the people. To have such a commitment is also to have a militant sense of responsibility, a recognition that actions have consequences which have a very real effect on the individual lives of those one seeks to advance."

"Far too many movements lack both a (legislative) perspective and a sense of responsibility, and they fail because of it," Ruskin wrote.

Barack Obama has managed to advance himself to the presidency with that legislative goal in front of his appeal to hope. Achieving legislative solutions which will adequately confront the republican minority and cause them to move away from Iraq (or any other of the former administration's crimes and abuses) will take time.

That effort will also, more than likely, take even more protesting and advocacy, but, as long as we keep our legislative goals at the head of our protests, and form the necessary coalitions of support to advance those legislative efforts within the system, we can assume the necessary responsibility for the consequences of our government and transform the direction of our movements from agitation to action.

Barack Obama's election is the realization by voters that our nation's problems will not be solved by academics, experts and technicians, economists, military tacticians, or legislators alone. It's an acknowledgment that we're all going to need to commit ourselves to stay engaged in working to develop and implement solutions.

As we celebrate the swearing-in of our 44th President, we also celebrate our own victory over cynicism and our determination to come together to drive home our stake in the future of our nation. We've elected someone who insists on that inclusive future. We've elected an authentic leader.

So here's a kick. No other words to add, yours were perfect.

but he's not an accomplished academic by any stretch of the imagination.

academic

1: a member of an institution of learning

2: a person who is academic in background, outlook, or methods

President of the Harvard Law Review who becomes President of the United States gets to be referred to as an accomplished academic.


Obama kept Law Review balanced

He confronted his most charged debates as president of the Harvard Law Review, the exclusive club of 80 student editors and future Supreme Court justices who publish a regular journal of legal writings. Classmates recall an especially emotional debate in the spring of 1990 over affirmative action, which conservative students wanted to abolish.

Presiding over an assembly of 60 mostly white editors in a law school classroom, Obama listened to impassioned pleas and pressed conservatives to explain their reasoning and liberals to sharpen their thinking.

read: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/01/28/at_harvard_law_a_unifying_voice/


At Harvard Law, a unifying voice - The Boston Globe

Barack Obama's election in 1990 as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review gave him his first moment of national fame, a powerful intellectual credential and a sweet book deal. It was also his first electoral victory, won in part by convincing the conservative minority of law students that he would treat them fairly.

While the title and election have become well-known parts of Obama's personal story, the substance of his actual work on the Review, where he spent at least 50 hours a week, has received little attention.

read: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11257.html

But since you decided to take the bait: being a law student and the president of a student-run law review doesn't make one an academic, let alone an accomplished academic. Teaching at the University of Chicago qualified Obama as an academic, but he was never an accomplished academic except in the sense in which he is also an accomplished basketball player (having played basketball and become president of the USA).

. . . you managed to suck out whatever life was left in this thread and completely ignored the point of the essay.

Good old DU.

pictures that people have been posting here lately. This is a time to remember forever.

K & R