I was browsing huffingtonpost.com as I often do these, days. It has a great synthesis of the very latest political news from other sites as well as from a large number of bloggers and guest bloggers on the site. Tonight I was reading this post by Miles Mogulescu, about how far more Democrats are turning out for the primaries than Republicans. His concluding paragraph, I think, sums up what has captured the excitement, enthusiasm, and yes, hope, of so many in recent weeks:
Yes, I know they tell us that false hope is dangerous. And yes, I know that change is hard. There’s a lot of tough work left to do to put a Democrat in the White House in the fall, and even tougher work to do after that to bring fundamental change to the country in the face of fierce resistance from the entrenched interests of the status quo and the power of multinational corporations It may even be necessary for progressive grassroots activists to push a president Obama farther than he’s initially inclined to go. And yet…and yet…today I can’t help but remember a warm summer day in Washington D. C. in August, 1963 when Martin Luther King proclaimed his and our dream to the nation… and I can’t help but picture a cold winter day in Washington D.C. day in January, 2009 as Barack Obama — son of a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas–delivers one of the great inaugural addresses in American history to a world in need of the audacity of hope.
Very well said. After George W. Blooper Bush, we are ready for a President who does inspire. Eloquent words are not enough. But to inspire a people, bring back a sense of excitement and pride in the U.S. again, and to take steps towards healing a rift with the rest of the world, and they are so, so necessary.
Page topic: President Barack Obama will give inspiring speeches. Just hot air? Or a vitally important piece of healing what has been broken?
