Video courtesy colojason
The Rocky Mountain News editorial board said it with eloquence we have no need to paraphrase:
This nation was forged in the promise of freedom. For its entire history it has provided greater opportunity and liberty for more of its citizens than any other country on Earth. But it was born with a great stain that endured for many decades: the institution of slavery, then the evil of segregation and second-class citizenship for the slaves’ descendants.The fact that an African-American could be nominated by a major party as its candidate for president only 45 years after Martin Luther King Jr.’s equally historic address on the Washington National Mall, at a moment when the bitter-enders of Jim Crow had yet to surrender, is breathtaking, inspiring and a tale to be told to our children’s children.
Let the cynics chuckle and sneer if they like at the classical backdrop at Invesco Field and the image it was intended to evoke. There is an arc from Lincoln to Obama, by way of King.
…as Obama approached the finish, he began a cadenced call for Americans to search for common ground on the difficult issues of the day – a call of the sort for which he is justifiably renowned and has few if any peers.
He was eloquent (if sometimes simplistic), and by the time he referenced the Lincoln Memorial and “a young preacher from Georgia” you could sense that he’d achieved his goal of connecting – for however long it remains to be seen – with a large swath of a very interested electorate.
…we have no intention of a line-by-line evaluation of Obama’s policies here. For the moment, we prefer to dwell on the spectacle, the energy and the dreams that were on display Thursday night in Colorado’s capital city, as history unfolded before the world’s eyes.
I’m proud to be a citizen of a state that….
…I believe, sent the first Native American to our US Senate…
…sent one of the first Latinos to our US Senate…
…had a Governor like Ralph Carr, who publicly opposed President Roosevelt and disagreed with the WW2 policy of sending citizens of Japanese ancestry to internment camps….
…hosted the nomination speech of the first minority to be elected President of our country…
Colorado is proud to have a rich history of celebrating diversity and empowering it
Great pick for best moment of 2008!
being a Republican, would find such personal pride at each of these historic events–given that each of the individuals giving you such pride were democrats when they made history.
It is made even more ironic by the fact that one of the candidates for your party’s national chair (who is the current chair of the state party of South Carolina) features the song “Barack the Magic Negro” prominently in his campaign….and reports are that this has not hurt his campaign, but has actually helped it!
Perhaps you might want to check your party ID….
who apparently agreed with FDR on foreign policy and WWII except–to his great credit–on the internment issue. I agree with you on the rest of your comments.
on Carr. I truly thought he was a Democrat!
But that’s besides the point… as a minority, I celebrate any progress that America makes in building more bridges, and both Parties have done a great share in empowering diversity
One reason I remain a proud Republican is because of President W Bush
I will never forget the day of the Oklahoma City bombing and having to watch the press go after Arabs and Muslims, painting us all as blood-starving monsters…. and Clinton and Gore sat silently… I, as a young Muslim, had to face the consequences of racism that day…
Whereas W Bush made such large efforts, right after 9/11, to visit Mosques and continually talk about Islam being a religion of peace… this wonderful outreach also included taking on members of the Republican Party (like the Tom Delay’s) who attempted to make it all an issue of hatred… I will never forget that, and it will always give me pride, as a Republican…
We must not forget either that it was Reagan who granted amnesty to ‘illegal’ immigrants in 1986, or President Lincoln’s freeing people from the shackles of slavery…. nor should we forget that it was Republican Senators and Congressmen that worked with LBJ in passing Civil Rights legislation…
I proudly voted for McCain this year and I stand by that vote — but being a partisan Republican takes a back seat to making our good country better
Happy New Year all!!
Who are you talking about? Ben Campbell?
He was more Portugese than he was Native American. It’s just that Native American was a better story.
And oh, by the way, opposing President Roosevelt isn’t gonna get you many votes.
But you already know how to get not many votes.
He was right to oppose FDR on this issue and FDR’s placing Americans in concetration camps because of their race was one of the worst episodes in our country’s history.
Ralphie – are you ‘actually’ condoning FDR’s action of putting people in concentration camps, solely due to their skin color/ethnicity????
Putting people in concentration camps, just because they had Japanese heritage, was as much a dark cloud upon our good history as enslavement was….
You can insult me all you want because I could really care less about empty insults — but not condemning internment of innocent Americans?????
…awful….
made him the bravest most honorable pol in America at the time. God bless his memory.
I would never deign to insult “The Next F***ing State Representative.”
How did that work out for you, by the way?
But I wanted to “say same to you, Jamba,” without the bitter part. Gotta be better than 2008, eh? 20 more days…
What an exciting event!