All along this presidential campaign, Senator McCain has several times questioned the true identity of Senator Obama. Very directly, he asked, “who is Senator Obama?” Both him and his vice president designated, refusing to recognize the remarkable qualities of Barack Obama, tried to wrongfully associate him with a crook real estate agent, a forty years past action of an agitator – now a university professor, an erratic pastor, while they are ignoring that Obama, classified Black, has been the president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review. They try to trivialize his dedicated service as a community organizer among poor racially divers men and women, criticize as ambitious his successes as State and U.S. senator, and qualified as pretentious his run for President of the United States, holding their breath not to say, “he is not White”.
They miss to realize that Obama was born a unifier in the state of Hawaii as the son of a Black African man and of a White Kansas woman who had to travel overseas as an international consultant leaving the young boy to the care of his maternal grandmother. She is that person Obama called affectionately “Toot”, short for the Hawaiian word for grandmother, “Tutu”. It is for his love and gratitude for this 86 years woman who worked two jobs to assure his education in the best schools while helping him to become the man he is today, that Obama interrupted his personal campaign involvement and flew last Thursday afternoon to visit with “Tout” for an hour the same night and Friday with his sister Maya Soetoro-Ng. Contrary to what some people think, gratitude is a virtue and Barack is an epitome of character.
Upon his return, Obama said, “Without going through the details too much, she’s gravely ill. I’m not sure whether she makes it to Election Day.” He added, “We’re all praying and we hope she does, but one of the things I want to make sure of is I had a chance to sit down with her and to talk to her. She’s still alert and she’s still got all her faculties. And I want to make sure that I don’t miss that opportunity.” Obama remained sorry because he was not at his mother’s bed side when she succumbed to ovarian cancer at age 53.
Now who is John McCain?
In a piece published last Sunday in the New York Times, David D. Kirkpatrick
wrote in Election Special Issue: “As a Navy pilot, Mr. McCain has written, he let his “cockiness” deafen him to the risk of a buzzer warning of enemy fire”. This refer to the circumstances of the gun down of his navy aircraft, as expressed in his admission, “I placed too much faith on what was beyond my knowledge or control: luck.” In his recent book with Mr. Salter, “Hard Call,” he wrote, “I had five and a half very long years to regret my decision and the lapse in self-awareness.”
This tragic experience has not temper Senator McCain who confess that, “I don’t torture myself over decisions. I make them as quickly as I can, quicker than the other fellow if I can.” And Kirkpatrick comments, “He [McCain] frets publicly that his ambition might tempt him to compromise his principles, but he also races headlong into battles in pursuit of political power … Driven as much by his notion of honor as by ideology, Mr. McCain could make an unpredictable — his critics say “erratic” — chief executive”.
So that on one side we have a compassionate, thoughtful, proven organizer and manager, and on the other side an impulsive, ambitious, politically driven and possibly erratic pretender, the choice is yours. But, remember, the ship is on tumultuous sea, only a reflective, controlled and steady hand captain can take us to safe port. If you have not yet voted, hurry. You have only three days left to vote for Barack Obama, before election day, November 4, 2008.
Who Is Who In This Presidential Campaign?
