From Hank in NY:

Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 9:03 AM
To: 'oped@washpost.com'
Subject: To The Editor

“Only In America”

We are witnessing a truly American phenomenon taking place across the country, and it is only possible in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Barack Obama has caught the imagination of a nation and the passion of a people. I was born in the early 1940’s when it was unimaginable that a black man could be elected to anything. The first time I was exposed to racism was when my beloved Brooklyn Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson as the first “negro” baseball player in the major leagues. My father was a traveling salesman in the South in the ‘50’s and 60’s, when black people were still sitting in the back of the bus and using “white only” and “colored” bathrooms. Then there were JFK, Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy and Rosa Parks, who championed the civil rights agenda that was made law in Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society.”

Even with all the progress minorities have made over the past fifty years, there is still racism in America. There is also a mistrust and fear, made possible and encouraged by the Bush administration, of anyone with a Muslim name or background. And now we have Barack Hussein Obama, who may be a runaway choice for the Democratic nomination for President, and a candidate who would have a very strong chance to become our forty-fourth President. For Obama’s candidacy to be taken seriously is cause to celebrate the American experience. There is not another country in the world where an Obama could be considered a possible leader.

Our country has been governed for the first seven plus years of the twenty-first century by a man who has sacrificed out bravest young men and women and our national treasure to satisfy his blood lust for nation building and oil. George W. Bush has lied and broken his sacred oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, and his promises to be a “uniter”, not a “divider”, and to be a “compassionate conservative.” America is ready and aching for a leader with the intelligence, compassion, dignity and integrity to take us forward and at the same time, back to the high moral ground and the values we hold so dear. Barack Obama is that leader. After he won the Iowa caucus, the speech he gave to his supporters was evocative of JFK’s, “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” It reminded me of Obama’s keynote address at the 2004 Democratic national convention when he burst on the scene as a surefire future presidential candidate.

In an election year where the Democrat’s have put together the strongest field of candidates in my lifetime, Senator Obama stands front and center as the one candidate who can beat any Republican, and who will be a true uniter of all American’s and the world community as well. This man is truly magical, and it would be a magical moment for America if we elect him in November.