The We Cannot Turn Back Speech - Obama

Well, it took about 5 minutes for someone to email me the cynical, bitter and somewhat desperate column by David Brooks in today's Times. Yes, he even caps it with a reference to the now mostly forgotten Jeremiah Wright - which served as a reminder of how cheap and pointless opposition politics was last Spring.

Of course the 08 DNC convention in Denver was pomp and circumstance. Of course it was engorged with platitudes. But it would take a hard core cynic not to have been fascinated by the arc of the story and the event's denouement: the last few minutes of Barack Obama's convention-ending speech. I found the transcript and reviewed the sections that had impressed on first listen, and they come off well in print -- better on video replay:

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The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America, they have served the United States of America.

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We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don't tell me we can't uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination. Passions fly on immigration, but I don't know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers. This, too, is part of America's promise, the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.

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America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done. Not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for. Not with an economy to fix and cities to rebuild and farms to save. Not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend.

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So to all the cynics that I know and love (you know who you are), call me naive. I see potential for progress in our unwieldy country by organizing what we essentially need and then harnessing the power of so many people and a competent administration and getting it done.