Obama's Masterful Speech

Everyone else is going to say it way better, but when I read the text of Obama's speech from yesterday in Philadelphia after finding out about it via friends' blogs, I welled up from inside with emotion. True story. It's going to be a benchmark in American history, pure and simple. It took courage to address the issue of race in America, while on the defensive, instead of avoiding a touchy topic because of fear of possible missteps during a campaign. There isn't much international coverage of it in the papers (my beloved Int'l Herald Tribune, the South China Morning Post) or on the television news (CNN World, BBC, SkyNews) besides short blurbs, yet to any American who is almost inevitably mishmash of different ethnicities, inlcuding my personal involvement with someone that is multi-hued, it was news I wanted to know about.

I haven't been on the bandwagon with him as much as everyone else I know is, mostly because I've been lazy and distracted by other things, but that speech finally made me sure he's the type of man I want leading my country. His words were powerful, moving, eloquently stated, and he's dead on. See below for some choice bits.

UPDATE on the 20th: With 36 hours now passed after his speech, and more time to allowed to print the stuff, much more coverage is appearing in the international press.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction....the path to a more perfect union...requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

...I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible...It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.