John Nichols: Obama and the Better Angels of Our Nature

[babylonsister]

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/379348

Obama and the Better Angels of Our Nature
posted by John Nichols on 11/03/2008 @ 06:00am

snip//

Obama's resume is shorter than McCain's, and imperfect in places. But it is precisely right for the American moment. As a community organizer in Chicago. Obama worked to save industrial jobs and the neighborhoods they sustain. As an Illinois state senator he was an ardent advocate of that state's historic death penalty moratorium. As a likely contender for the U.S. Senate in 2002 and 2003, he marched with anti-war protesters. As a freshman senator he worked with Wisconsin's Russ Feingold to promote sweeping ethics reforms. And as a presidential candidate he has mounted a campaign distinguished by its optimism, its vigor, its appeal to the young and the previously disengaged, and its success in upending the calculations of those who thought they controlled our politics.

Everything about the Republican nominee's current campaign suggests that a McCain presidency would be a continuation of the Bush era. Everything about Obama's campaign suggests that he favors a bolder break with the failed politics and policies of the Bush interregnum.

McCain has attempted to define Obama as a radical in the last days of this very long campaign. And, in a sense, the senior senator is right. In fact, the Democrat proposes a change that would be far more radical than McCain and angriest supporters dare imagine: a transformation. Obama's is the politics of faith in the prospect of democratic renewal; of the worthy dream that a divided people might unite around common purposes and lower partisan barriers to make possible dramatic shifts in the way the United States relates to the world and to itself.

It is for that reason that many of the nation's most prominent Republicans – former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Susan Eisenhower, former Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee, former Iowa Congressman Jim Leach, and former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld, among them – have endorsed Obama.

McCain derides Obama as a "big talker" holding out false hope to worried Americans.

Obama responds that, "This whole notion of false hopes bothers me. There is no such thing as false hopes."

Some truths are self-evident – among them, that Lincoln would have preferred Obama's hope to McCain's desperate denial of it. And so, it seems, will the voters of these United States. Just as when they supported another radical from Illinois 148 years ago, the American people continue to prefer the audacity of hope to the compromise of complacency.

As Election Day finally arrives, it is right to speak of hope – a hope that America's Democrats, independents and Republicans will again embrace the better angels of our nature and support the candidacy of another young Illinoisan so overwhelming that he can secure his claim on the presidency of a nation that is so ready to begin anew.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. So Nichols is saying that every time we get into trouble, we

find a tall, skinny, dark guy from Illinois to straighten us out.

http://racerelations.about.com/b/2007/02/17/why-obama-wouldnt-be-the-first-president-with-african-ancestry.htm

the sixteenth U.S. President, had dark skin, course hair, and a heritage that included Melungeon or African ancestors. Hussein writes that "His heritage fueled so much controversy that Lincoln was nicknamed "Abraham Africanus the First" by his opponents."

[babylonsister]

2. Wow, how did you make that leap?

I realize absorbing what you read can be a different experience for everyone, but your interpretation is far different than what I got out of this.

And thanks for that bit of history: I had no idea!

[Jackpine Radical]

3. I was just sort of having fun with Nichols' parallels.

Did you check out the site I linked to?

[babylonsister]

4. I just did-WOW! So much ado about nothing. Again,

too bad we don't learn from history.

Thanks for the link: I think I'll go edumicate some other people with it.