Letters to the Editor
iowademocrat
Published Letters: 27 Editor's Choice: 6
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A Second Chance
[Read the article: Biracial, but not like me]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As an Iowan, I have been really lucky. I got to watch Barack Obama up close, really closely many times. I saw him give a speech to an Iowa church group (UCC ministers, mainly), and to 7000 thunderstruck people at Iowa State University. I witnessed the JJ Dinner speech that launched him into the stratosphere, and won Iowa for him. I saw him answer hard questions for an hour in Fort Dodge, IA. I got to ask him questions directly, two times. I've shaken his hand. I've had my picture taken with him (and no, I didn't give him a lot of money to get it). I saw him grab a crowd of 3,000 people and keep them mesmerized for 20 minutes at a "Pre" event for a much larger event. I was within 20 feet of him at the famous Oprah event with 18,500 people there during an ice storm.
Each time, I felt something palpably profound when I was around him, that he was real, not fake; wise, not glib; and powerful, but not in love with power. It's not like I've never been around political heavyweights before, either. I wasn't starstruck. Bill Clinton has even more pure charisma in person. Joe Biden has more facts in his brain. Jesse Jackson at his peak was more purely exciting. Bradley, Kerry, Gore, Dukakis, Edwards, Hillary, and others have all shown themselves to be exceptional people in many ways.
But Obama has something unusual that trumps them all. He is the single most relaxed politician I have ever met. That relaxation, which is harder to see on TV, is so complete that only two possibilities explain it. He is either a sociopath who is fully and completely separate from all other people, who has the ability to fake empathy in the way only insane people can; or he is completely self-aware and centered. Clue. It is not the first, but the second!
It's pretty obvious that Obama is a sincere individual. He is not lying nor hypothesizing when he says we can change the world. I never understood until Mr. Kamiya's letter why I have been so sure about that. But, by sharing his own experience, Mr. Kamiya has found the answer. Because of his particular upbringing in specific places at specific times, Barack Obama has been able to follow Plato's immortal advice. He knows himself.
Combine that with genius intelligence and the pure empathy Mr. Kamiya writes about, it all makes sense. The strong belief I have developed in Barack Obama exists because he put it there, because he exists for this time in the way only a few people can do. Lincoln, Churchill, JFK. I don't mean to say he is great like them (that's definitely premature), but that he is perfect for his time in history like they were. This is a big moment!
I was only a few miles away when JFK was killed, and I thought I'd never get over the loss. I was thirteen years old. When I read Ted Sorensen's op-ed in TNR that compared Obama with JFK, I began to see the similarity. That's when I realized, as a baby-boomer, I have always had one great regret. I always thought it was that JFK got killed, but I was wrong. I haven't wanted to face that I, and my generation had failed to fully act upon the idealism we brought to the 1960s and beyond. In the end, it was easier to blame it all on Lee Harvey Oswald. But, it was us who failed; us who lost focus, got greedy and forgot our commitment to the clarion ideals the Democratic Party used to express.
When Obama won Iowa (and I'm proud to have played a tiny part in that) I began to feel that my generation might yet be redeemed. The hope that Obama loves to talk about is specifically for me, for us. We have a second chance.
If you are of my generation, you'll know what I mean. If you are in a Super Tuesday state, please vote for the voice we forgot about more than 27 years ago, the voice that told us to stop the war, to free ourselves from prejudice, to bond with each other as a community of friends. Our voice has come back to us, and it comes from the mouth of Barack Obama.
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Terrible Precedent
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Traditionally, games fouled up by the refs are still completed games. Although NBA rules may allow the Commissioner to rule a redo, it's not wise. Just wait until a mistake is made in a playoff game! It won't be pretty. The fact that the roster is different for both teams is hilarious, it's really not relevant to the larger issue, that the outcomes of games should be decided during the games, and not afterward.