On the bedside table:
Commentary: Barack Obama - Deja Vu (all over again)?
Once upon a time there was a one-term congressman from Illinois who decided to run for President of the United States of America. A relative unknown at the time, the young politician was continuously assailed by his opponent and by the media as being too inexperienced, untested, and unqualified to take on the huge job of running, and re-uniting, the Union. As the political campaigning progressed toward election day the underdog grew in popularity so as to become threatening to the "establishment." One tactic used by the forces of reaction to slow the rising young star was to inject the always present, always devisive, issue of race more and more prominently into the debates and public discourse. The fledgling candidate's words on the subject were closely scrutinized-- he remained steadfast in his beliefs and eloquent in his delivery. His name: Abraham Lincoln-- and his unmatched legacy is starkly evident in the candicacy of another "too inexperienced" upstart named Barack Obama...
Obama's speech on race in America:
“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."
"Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787...."
"The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations...." >>