Well done…….

This, in my opinion, is his appeal. He tells people, come with me to Washington and let us change things, not, SEND ME to Washington and wait for results.

This from and old High School grad, white male, whose dreams died with Robert Kennedy

Dat hangt er van af. Dutch history is over populated with meglomaniacs, “cult leaders”, crazy kings and queens, conquests, congueror and conguered, compromised republics and democracies, ridiclous speculation, and endless religious war. Almost sounds like the US only without the guilt, social repression, Eel sandwiches, and legalized marijuana and prostitution (both a great idea by the way). No country has a monopoly on stupidity – although being American I like to think we do.

Maybe we Americans also have more experience with honest-to-god cults. I don’t think Obama’s supporters are going to end up living in a compound togother awaiting the messiah or aliens to arrive. I think you can criticize the lack of substance in the rhetoric without turning towards the cult label. It’s a huge overstatement and confuses hopeful exubreance with blind devotion.

But, yeah, it’s typically American. We get this way about American Idol too.

MIchael R.: I don’t think there’s anything stupid about that line of criticism. I’m Dutch, and I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s worshiping of a politician, at least from a Dutch perspective it’s way out of line, pathetic even.

O, and my more anti-American friends would say; and typically American.

Who knows.

Not the far right, no. They’re more interested in power than ideas or solutions to ever be united to anything but their own egos. But I think there can be Democrats who win over enough of the right as to leave the Limbaughs of the world on their own island. The trick is to also leave the divisive elements of the left on the same island so the vast majority of decent folk can get on with the business of the nation without getting sucked into the fights started by the wingers.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cass-r-sunstein/the-obama-i-know_b_90034.html

*These are points about policies and substance. As president, Obama would set a new tone in US politics. He refuses to demonize his political opponents; deep in his heart, I believe, he doesn’t even think of them as opponents. It would not be surprising to find Republicans and independents prominent in his administration.

Obama wants to know what ideas are likely to work, not whether a Democrat or a Republican is responsible for them. Recall the most memorable passage from his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic Convention: “We coach Little League [baseball] in the blue [Democratic-voting] states, and, yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the red states. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq, and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq.”

In his book The Audacity of Hope, he asks for a politics that accepts “the possibility that the other side might sometimes have a point”. Remarking that ordinary Americans “don’t always understand the arguments between right and left, conservative and liberal”, Obama wants politicians “to catch up with them,”

After he received an email from a pro-life doctor, Obama recalls how he softened his website’s harsh rhetoric on abortion, writing: “[T]hat night, before I went to bed, I said a prayer of my own — that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me.”

In short, Obama’s own approach is insistently charitable. He assumes decency and good faith on the part of those who disagree with him. And he wants to hear what they have to say. Both in substance and in tone, Obama questions the conventional political distinctions between “the left” and “the right”. To the extent that he is attracting support from Republicans and independents, it is largely for this reason.

From knowing Obama for many years, I have no doubts about his ability to lead. He knows a great deal, and he is a quick learner. Even better, he knows what he does not know, and there is no question that he would assemble an accomplished, experienced team of advisers. His brilliant administration of his own campaign provides helpful evidence here.

But there is some fragility to the public fervor that envelops him. Crowds and cults can be fickle, and if some of his decisions disappoint, or turn out badly, his support will diminish. Some people think it might even collapse.

My own concern involves the importance of internal debate. The greatest American presidents (above all Lincoln and Roosevelt) benefited from robust dialogue and from advisers who avoided saying, “how wonderful you are,” and were willing to say: “Mr President, your thinking about this is all wrong.”

Because Obama himself is exceptionally able, and because so many people are treating him as a near-messiah, his advisers might be too deferential, too unwilling to question. There is a real risk here. But I believe that his humility, and his intense desire to seek out dissenting views, will prove crucial safeguards.

In the 2000 campaign, Bush proclaimed himself a “uniter, not a divider”, only to turn out to be the most divisive President in memory. Because of his own certainty, and his lack of curiosity about what others might think, Bush polarized the nation. Many of his most ambitious plans went nowhere as a result.

As president, Barack Obama would be a genuine uniter. If he proves able to achieve great things, for his nation and for the world, it will be above all for that reason.*

There is no such thing as someone capable of being a Democrat who could stop the attacks from the right. One does not have to be extremely liberal for this to be true. Given the attacks from the right on McCain I would think that you would realize this.

I agree with you. And I’ll go further: this is the stupidest line of attack I’ve seen in quote a while. People who imagine themselves clever, cynical and wise who end up sounding like twits. Do they really think you get elected by attacking hope and optimism? In this country?

It is wonderful to have the young, smart and “right” guy as the leader of our nation. There is not much difference between their policies. The question is if we deserve Obama. Maybe for us bickering small minded people, Clinton is just the president we deserve. I look at the poll and feel depressed about 8 dark years ahead of us.

:)