Obama rocked people’s socks off in Oakland, 2007. He’s been doing it ever since, and today he did it, again.
Photo by Khalil Abusaba
Ever since I saw Sen. Barack Obama speaking in Oakland on St. Patrick’s Day, 2007, I’ve been confident that he’ll be able to roll with the punches on the presidential campaign trail, no matter what gets thrown at him.
Today, Obama did it again, turning the predictable attacks on his patriotism into an opportunity to make a great and uplifting speech.
“Patriotism starts as a gut instinct, a loyalty and love for country that’s rooted in some of my earliest memories,” Obama said in a speech that’s being widely reported on the Internet.
Obama said that as he grew up, his patriotism matured to something that “Would survive my growing awareness of our nation’s imperfections: its ongoing racial strife; the perversion of our political system that were laid bare during the Watergate hearings; the wrenching poverty of the Mississippi Delta and the hills of Appalachia.”
Obama said he learned that “What makes America great has never been its perfection, but the belief that it can be made better.”
Patriotism, he also said, must involve the willingness to sacrifice.
He then called attention to the service of John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate.
McCain’s campaign has been calling on Obama to condemn comments from retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who said this weekend that McCain’s service in Vietnam did not necessarily mean that he was qualified to serve as commander-in-chief.
Clark is a military adviser for Obama.
Obama did not directly address Clark’s comments, today, but after calling attention to McCain’s service, he said “no one should ever devalue that service, especially for the sake of a political campaign, and that goes for supporters of both sides.”
