Whatever else you may think of Obama, he pulled off a near-miracle considering the odds..
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=acm2zFwFvGGM --------------------------------------------snip I expect a story any minute that President-elect Barack Obama is moving too fast, or not fast enough. That his first hire, that of Representative Rahm Emanuel as White House chief of staff by way of the Clinton Administration, is a sign he's just a hack. That he isn't doing enough to grasp the gracious olive branch extended by the man he defeated, Senator John McCain. The puppy he promised his daughters is the wrong breed. It's coming. It always does. For a day at least, let's stop and celebrate the improbable assumption of the highest office in the land by this outsider with no birthright, no connections, no mentors. Lyndon Johnson had Sam Rayburn. Harry Truman had the Pendergast gang. Dwight Eisenhower had George Marshall and the Lodges. John F. Kennedy had his dad. Ronald Reagan was mentored by an entire movement looking for a new face. Obama's would-be rabbis came to him in Chicago and tried to persuade the community organizer to abandon his first bids for office. He once went to a Chicago bigwig and was asked who sent him. ``Nobody,'' Obama answered. ``We don't want nobody nobody sent,'' he was told. At the 2000 Democratic convention, he couldn't get a floor pass. He couldn't even cadge an invitation to the Illinois delegation's parties. He watched most of the speeches on television. He left early. -- "Really ?? What a coincidence, I'm shallow too!!" _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
