Thanks for picking that-up. Of course I met I pray that there is NOT

This is the most adept political figure of our times. He is, as someone once said of somebody, a rare combination of gall and brains. A lot of people have gall and a lot of people have brains, it is the the rare and gifted leader who has both.

The right man at the right time. But, as JFK, said "we are all mortal. Perhaps are problems are so immense as to be intractible, but I can think of know one who has demonstrated as much ability to handle them, as Obama.

BTW, no one has commented on one of the truly ingenious ploys of his Berlin speech: the Airlift bit. If you are an old EF, that had to ringj your bell a bit becasue the Airlift was one of those times when Americans could be justifiably prooud o0f their country. (And by the way, the first pilot to land a four engince C-54 at Templehof was a certain New York lawyers oldest brother (by 16 years)By hooking his speech into the Airlift, Obama was hooking into the 65 and older who have been his hardest sell.

See http://www.johnklotz.com/billy.htm (it includes a picture of my brother being welcomed by a little German girl and her mother)

After living through repeated Presidential disasters, I understand the 2004 syndrome that affects those who fear a McCain election. But I am going to point out a big, big difference between 2004 and 2008: Obama is smarter than John Kerry. Okay, maybe I'm an intellectual snob, but one of the shockers of 2004 buried on the back pages, was that W actually had a higher IQ and I believe a better record than Kerry at Yale. (And he didn't study much). Both were gentlemen Cs. You would have to go back to Woodrow Wilson to find a candidate who is Obama's intellectual equal.

Not that just being smart isn't enough. (See Wilson, above) What Obama has demonstrated throughout his life is smart, socially conscious decisions. Even if his Presidential ambitions date to Kindergarten (so what?, his path has been one of activism and training himself at the grass roots level where real people (often oppressed) live, work and play.

Barak seeks three pointers and marries another activist attorney. Kerry windsurfs and marries a billionaire heiress.

And Kerry was surrounded by don't rock the boat Democratic strategists who response to the Swift Boat attack was to raise his neck and expose his jugular vein.

This is not 2004 and if Barak Obama was white, it might not be even close. It's not just that he's intelligent, it's how he's used his intelligence that sets him apart.

You have to really stick you head-up the place where the sun doesn't shine to not understand how triumphant the images from his European trip were. Speaking to a crowd of 200,000 Europeans waiving American flags is presumptuous? To paraphrase Lincoln about Grant, find-out what's he drinking and order it for the rest of the Democrats.

But perhaps, on another level, his meeting on Monday to shift to the economy with all the self-styled economic experts (with a union leader sitting at his side) was a master stroke also. And there is no doubt that he was in charge, and that the individuals there (many of them also extraordinarily bright and intelligent) were also willing to accept his leadership.

The issue in this campaign isn't going to be how qualified Obama is - he's answered that. The issue is how courageous the American voter will be, and whether, if he/she is courageous enough to vote for Obama. And whether this election can be stolen. Now matter how desperate our situation, for many American voters, voting for change and a black man may be just too much.

"We have met the enemy, and he is us," Pogo once famously noted. It's time for the voters to switch sides.

johnklotz.blogspot.com

OOnce there was a time when there was a Republican Party that called itself "The Party of Lincoln." They sang the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" at national conventions. Now, no more Lincoln.

Lincoln and his genius are the great enigma's of history. As Gary Wills as written, he literally redefined America at Gettysburg, re-establishing the egalitarian and populist ideals of the Declaration of Independence as the defining document of our the Republic. In one alternative history book, the Union loses Gettysburg, the South wins the war and Lincoln re-emerges as the founder of the American Socialist Party.

But even though he made his mark as a lawyer for the railroads, Lincoln was a populist. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates he argued for the rights of the individual over the rights of property. And, he advocated the right of people to revolt, if government ever trampled on their liberties.

Unlike Lincoln, Obama won his Senatorial campaign in Illinois. His is also a studied intelligence. He has been gifted with an education at the finest educational institutions in America, among the very best in the world. He was a fatherless child, Lincoln a motherless one who, according to legend, whittled the feet for his mother’s casket.

The contrast between McCain and Obama personally, could not be greater.

On can not presume to call Obama a new Lincoln, Roosevelt or Kennedy. But more than any Presidential candidate since Kennedy, he embodies the very best of what we have to offer ourselves, and the world.

He is a risk, a risk of enormous disappointment if he fails. But, he has the intellect and the savvy that could lead us out of our current multiple crises.

The issue in this campaign will be whether America has the courage to follow the candidate of the real “Party of Lincoln.”

johnklotz.blogspot.com