He wrote what he saw “in Lincoln’s eyes”
And to some of us reading it was no surprise
That we were certainly in for a treat
When Barack H. Obama rose to his feet
Remember when we heard him speak
At that Democratic National Convention
His remarks got rave reviews in ’04
Much more than honorable mention
****
****
And during his first presidential campaign
When we craved to hear him even more
Remember he told us that we … we …
Were the ones we’d been waiting for
When he cajoled we’re ” … a nation of immigrants …
… strangers once, too,” he stood tall
Prodding us to come together as one, for
“Embracing tribe dooms us all”
From his loftiest words heard in a consoling speech:
“Faith doesn’t mean that you don’t have doubt”
****
****
To his hysterically funny two words to the press:
“Obama, Out!”
Sometimes he delivered oration in a hymn
Often his words caught us all on fire
This man seems to have come out of history
In colonial days, he’d have been a town crier
We love this man, his mind, voice, and tone
We see he’s armed us better than we were before
And when we wonder if we’ll be able to go it alone
We whisper we are the ones we’ve been waiting for
And isn’t that the proof of the orator he’s been
And the fact we seldom see his kind
We’re not sure which of our heartstrings he pulled
But we know he also left his words in our minds
And this year we thank him
Genuinely, without measure
For being Orator-in-Chief
And our national treasure
Pete Souza: A soldier hugs President Barack Obama following his remarks at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, May 25
****
President Obama steps off Air Force One after arriving at Bagram Air Field for an unannounced visit
****
President Obama greets US Ambassador to Afghanistan James Cunningham and General Joseph Dunfore, Commander of ISAF and US Forces Afghanistan, after disembarking from Air Force One upon arrival at Bagram Air Field
****
President Obama and Brigadier General Erik Kurilla view photos of fallen military personnel at Camp Alpha, Bagram
I saw the young man
In the photograph
Three rows in, on the right
After you pointed him out
And he wore a hoodie
On that day of days
And probably into that night
Back in May of 1969
When the people were
Commemorating the
Awful Dr. King assassination
We had all lived through
With them
The year before.
And so it was in so many ways
And so many years since
That another young man
Minding his own business
With his entire life ahead
Walked out onto the street
Away from the protection of his father
Wearing a hoodie into the night
And into the photographs in our minds
Forever.
Rest in Peace, Dr. King
Rest in Peace, Trayvon Martin
Never forgotten in the annals of history
And the depths of the souls
Of good people
Like you, when you thought to point out the likeness
Like us, when we understood the meaning
Good people, coast to coast
And sea to shining sea
All the good people they left behind
To pass the story forward.
The Great Emancipator
Mocked and vilified in life
Stares down from his portrait
At the new President’s wife
My dear Mr. Lincoln
As you look down from on high
May we present Mrs. Obama
With a tear in our eye
There sits a building, painted white
It glimmers in the bright sunlight
Built by strong, dark hands, without a choice
Built to house a leader, so we’d all have a voice
There sits a building, painted white
It shimmers in the soft twilight
Shadowing strong, dark hands taking their rest
Ghosts of our democracy, who gave it their best
There sits a building, painted white
It dims its lights, overnight
Built by slaves, who also served inside
Where none thought they should ever reside
There sits a building, painted white
We tip our hats to it, day and night
Built by slaves, who’d hang their heads to pray
A man with strong, dark hands would live there someday
There sits a building, painted white
I dare to say it is still quite the sight
For a still young country, yet to fully repent
But now shining light on why their knees were bent
I’m confident some of my “political” involvement matches that of others, at least of my generation. (Okay, I don’t presume to say that it exactly matches, but, at the very least, it is representative.)
I started noticing national politics as a (part-Irish, Catholic) teenager in high school, when JFK came on the scene (even the nuns were happy) and I’d race home from school to watch his wonderful afternoon press conferences.
Being from the Northeast (where we and so many people in this vast country lived in a white, middle-class bubble), I also had the awful awakening in the ’60s to what for decades (outside of our bubble) had led up to the Civil Rights movement – and what was still going on, most specifically in the South, suddenly publicized on TV news programs – and suffered along with the nation when the best of the best leaders of “our time” were assassinated.
All of it cut me to the core, and left an impression on my heart that remains today.
After that, many baby boomers set out to “change the world,” which, we are just finding out, we didn’t.
I never felt connected to politics after the ’60s … so many of us were crushed by all of the events that had occurred, at least one of which (the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby) we watched live on our black and white TVs. I remember thinking our nation was lost. At the very least, my generation was experiencing what later might have been called varying levels of human rights post-traumatic stress disorder.
Statement from Vice President Biden on Mitt Romney’s VFW Remarks:
“Over the past three years, President Obama has taken the fight directly to America’s enemies, confronting al-Qaeda head on and taking out Osama bin Laden. He ended the war in Iraq responsibly and has a plan to do the same in Afghanistan. He has done more for Israel’s security than any President since Harry Truman, led international efforts to put the most pressure in history on Iran, protected the people of Libya from a brutal dictator and helped rebuild our alliances across the globe. He saved our economy from collapse with bold decisions, including the rescue of the automobile industry – which has made us stronger abroad. Because of President Obama’s leadership, Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.
Today, Governor Romney had an opportunity to fulfill a long-standing promise by laying out his foreign policy vision and agenda. He had a chance to say how he would lead as Commander-in-Chief. Instead, all we heard from Governor Romney was empty rhetoric and bluster. He reflexively criticizes the President’s policies without offering any alternatives. When he does venture a position, it’s a safe bet that he previously took exactly the opposite position and will probably change his mind again and land in the wrong place – far out of the mainstream. Or he mischaracterizes our record to create a non-existent contrast.
On Afghanistan:
“Governor Romney supported the President’s timeline to end the war in Afghanistan, then he opposed it and now it is hard to know where he stands. His misguided criticism of the President’s new defense strategy is undermined by the fact that strategy was designed with and supported by the entire Defense Department senior leadership, uniform and civilian. It provides for a more agile, flexible force, better able to confront aggressors and project power, with strong partnerships to share the burden and smart investments in cutting edge capabilities. We proposed a budget to fully fund that strategy and keep faith with our veterans.
On Russia:
“When it comes to Russia – which he recently called “our number one geo-political foe” – Governor Romney remains mired in a Cold War mindset. We have serious disagreements with Moscow, but our cooperation has made the American people more secure. Russia cancelled the sale of cutting edge radar to Iran and joined us in imposing the toughest sanctions in history on Tehran. Together, we negotiated a major nuclear arms reduction treaty – New START – that virtually the entire Republican foreign policy establishment supported but Governor Romney and a very small group of Cold War holdovers opposed.
On Poland and missile defense:
“On the eve of his trip to Poland, the Governor is either profoundly misinformed – or misinforming the American people. He asserts that the President abandoned a missile defense system in that country. President Obama asked me to secure Allied support for a new missile defense plan for Europe. Who did we ask to host its main components? Poland, along with Turkey, Romania, Germany and Spain. These countries and all of NATO embraced our approach because it protects more of Europe more quickly than the old plan.
On Israel:
“Governor Romney continues his long litany of untruths about our administration’s policies toward Israel. We’ve provided record levels of security assistance, funding for the Iron Dome missile defense system that intercepted nearly 80 percent of the rockets recently fired from Gaza, close collaboration on longer range missile defense systems, the largest joint military exercises in history, the most consistent and comprehensive exchanges ever between our top political, defense, security and intelligence officials. And, contrary to Governor Romney’s outrageous accusation that the President joined in the chorus of insults levied against Israel at the United Nations, President Obama has stood up repeatedly, publicly and often alone against efforts to delegitimize Israel at the U.N. and around the world.
On Iran:
“On Iran, Governor Romney does a compelling job laying out exactly what the Administration is already doing. The only step he seems to think we should take that we are not already taking is to launch a war. If that is what the Governor is for, he should tell the American people.
On al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden:
“One thing the Governor did not talk about today was al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. That’s not surprising. When he last ran for President, Governor Romney was asked what he would do about bin Laden. He said then: ‘it is not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.’ We know how Obama answered that question: by ordering our intelligence services to leave no stone unturned in the hunt for bin Laden, and then authorizing one of the highest risk missions ever to capture or kill our number one enemy.
“Thanks to President Obama’s leadership, bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive — and everything we have learned from Governor Romney today and during this campaign tells the American people that a Romney presidency would have resulted in just the opposite.”
****
The Oregon Convention Center, Portland
****
At the Gateway Breakfast House in Portland
****
First lady Michelle Obama hugs a campaign volunteer as she visited the Obama campaign office in Dayton, Ohio
…. arriving to speak to a crowd of supporters during a campaign stop at the Dayton Convention Center
Text of the First Lady’s remarks at Westerville Central High School here
At a day camp at the Westerville Community Center, Ohio
****
A Word from Jacqueline O’Boomer
The morning after the tragic events in Aurora, Colorado, I became enraged. I’m a 60-something original baby boomer, and I’ve seen all kinds of events, some similar to this one, over my lifetime, played out in real-time or covered after the fact on TV, written about in newspapers and online, but I had a totally different reaction to Aurora.
I didn’t give it much thought the first couple of days, thinking maybe it was “just me,” or something, since I had noticed that so many others were reacting EXACTLY the same way I had previously, to the awful events of Oklahoma City, Columbine, Tucson, and the like — our homegrown variety of “massacres.” A few parts of the story finally helped me crystallize my own emotions, as did a good chat with a long-time friend.
First, the use of the term “massacre” by the media relating to Aurora has bothered me tremendously. Not to diminish the tragedy – it was a tragedy; wonderful people were lost forever to their families – but citizens of our country hear about massacres off our shores on a daily basis, and there is no real public outcry across a broad spectrum of our American citizenry over that. For instance, around the same time as Aurora, I believe I saw a similar number of Syrians were killed in one day, in their country, on behalf of a mass murderer, their own leader. That massacre barely got the attention of the U.S. media, nor did any of the other massacres in foreign lands that happen almost without notice by what we all think is our “well-informed” citizenry and its press. And, in our own country, people die on city streets and in rural areas every day through gun violence, but their stories aren’t covered on TV and, after all, we don’t “know” them. Isn’t it always a “tribal” thing for us human beings, no matter what country we’re from?
The Obama Diary 
You must be logged in to post a comment.