"Remind the people why you are here, why you, and we, are better than the nation we have been."

I agree. And (for example) if I were Obama's advisor, I would advise him to think of the time remaining before the convention as a teaching opportunity. He might spend 15 or 20 minutes of every speech giving a course, maybe geared toward first-year college students, on (1) democracy and democratic (small d) values and why they matter in the world from HIS perspective, and (2) how a president can/should put those values into effect and restore effective governance in this country ... for starters. (We all wish he would talk about how he would actually govern, especially in the face of intransigent opposition, and this would be an opportunity for him to do that.)

Wonderful post. Please forward to the Obama campaign if you have not. Forward it to McClinton as well.

Great post. Thank you.

In the ancient and timeless play, The Clouds," Aristophanes described Socrates as contemplating the heavens from a hammock so his feet would not touch the ground. Later Aristophanes accused Socrates of the sins of his enemies, the Sophists.

When Socrates was unable to effectively counter such an attack, he was given a tall cup of hemlock to drink.

Socrates still continued to proclaim that the worst harm one human could do to another was to misinform them. Under the circumstances there are those who might disagree with even the great Socrates.

It is good to study the heavens with a Socrates or even an Obama or a Furion but it might pay at the same time to watch where one steps. A missing manhole cover in the sidewalk might also be good to contemplate.

It is quite apparent that the trash talk has been employed effectively. It must be countered - effectively. It need not be of a similar nature. Obama will never be able to sling mud like the pros but telling the truth is sometimes efficacious.

Best, Terry

Share this with the campaign, I put it on Digg

Furion, I point you to Obama's jousting with McCain recently.

Obama can indeed fight back, on the issues, and do it with flair.

He should do the same with HRC.

No need to be as ugly or dirty as her. Just keep debating, keep beating down her attacks, and for christ's sake, get a better handle on the newscycle.

Take our resident puppet, Greg. He posts at least a dozen "Wolfson says" posts on TPM. Obama needs to keep the chatter and rebuttals coming. Go on the offense.

Again, Obama is good sparring with McCain. Do the same with HRC. Sparring over the issues is entirely legitimate. I would pound her over NAFTA, her inflated foreign policy pretensions, and other hypocrisy.

It is very easy to see why people seem to like Obama-he has lots of charisma. The important part of judging human character is to look deep inside them which is very hard to do. Since we cannot do this we can only judge people by their actions. As a politician, Obama has weakened and taken money for himself, over what is good for the country.
Case in point Exelon company, which is based in Illinois, and has contributed at least $227,000 to Mr. Obama for watering down a bill that allows radioactive waste to turn up in groundwater.
Everyone knows he has taken money for the home he lives in. Not a good sign of a man good with money and good moral values when you are holding public office. So it really shouldn't matter whether Obama criticizes someone else or not he should look at himself and what he is offering.

Sadly, HRC is more focused on winning the nomination than in winning the WH. She's more worried about being "a first" than in relegating the GOP to irrelevancy. Her nomination will cost the Democratic Party the support of African-Americans and Americans less than 45 years old.

Frankly speaking, if HRC is the Democratic nominee, I will not support her. I won't support John McCain. I'd rather have a GOP president that a traitorous so-called Democrat as president who will appoint right-of-center justices to the Supreme Court.

The days of us psychotic baby boomers running the country should be over... HRC could have won the WH in 2004 but she didn't have the balls to run... she's way too risk averse.... her time is past... it's time for her to accept that her time is gone to the country's detriment.... Just think, if she'd had the balls to run in 2004, we wouldn't have GWB in the WH.

More importantly, why would I vote for a right of center Democrat over a right of center Republican?

HRC, the Goldwater Girl, has become the perfect Manchurin candidate.

Socrates WAS a sophist. He was an anti-democratic elitist who consistently tried to turn the young men of Athens against their government and he tried to get them to embrace oligarchy. That it took the city of Athens so long to send him that tall cup of hemlock is a tribute to the tolerance and sense of civil rights in the world's first democracy.

You know, I love the Socratic dialogues of Plato. They are so beautifully written. And Plato puts these wonderful words in Socrates' mouth and makes them sound so reasonable. That is the very definition of sophistry, making the weaker argument seem stronger. But, I can't help but read Plato's contempt for democratic government dripping from nearly every page. And I think that is why Plato is the philosopher of choice for the William F. Buckleys of the world.

And the Hillary Clintons. We are being subjected to a barrage of sophistry that makes Socrates look like a child rather than one of the world's great teachers. The moving goal posts, declaring that her opponents victories don't matter, that his votes and voters don't matter, that his entire life experience doesn't matter, now that is sophistry! And Socrates would be proud.

That it took the city of Athens so long to send [Socrates] that tall cup of hemlock is a tribute to the tolerance and sense of civil rights in the world's first democracy.

Athens was no more a democracy than Iceland was under the Vikings. Plato even declared democracy the second worst form of government after despotism. In reality we don't have democracy ourselves.

I personally think Plato gets a bad rap being hailed by the autocratic Buckleys as anything like them. It is a mirror image in my view of Voltaire and other leaders of the Enlightenment hailing Catherine the Great of Russia as an ideal ruler.

Socrates' primary complaint against the Sophists was that they taught leadership. The Sophists seem to have founded the schools that turn out MBA's to wreck businesses and the economy.

Making weak arguments stronger is the work of lawyers and - today - spin doctors. It used to be the rap against sales people, who still don't get no breaks.

How come you picking on my favorite epileptic after Dostoyevsky? :-)

Dostoyevsky, a reformed rebel (kind of - hard to think of Dostoyevsky as reformed in any way), supported the czarist government and wrote devastating reviews of the Russian Revolution long before it happened.

The Buckleys by comparison with such thinkers were always simplistic dolts.

JMO. Thank you for your views. Refreshing here.

Best, Terry

I just mailed it to the Obama campaign.

No he is not the only chance - he is though - the best opportunity. Don't mistake a very pragmatic decision to stronly support the best candidate for the job with messianic expectations. I have very practical expectations based on his past performance and current thinking.

I just want to thank everyone for your comments - I'm quite moved by them.

Honestly I almost didn't post this - I expected to be hit with a wave of negative reaction. But I did anyway.

There is great confusion over "idealism." The concept is from Plato, who favored tyrannic government by those qualified to see the ideals which he believed stand outside of time. Aristotle had a far different vision, of the best life and best politics as not referencing ideals that only a few could claim to see clearly, but rather connecting to all the various good things which we are aware of in this world. For Aristotle, the goal of the virtuous is not conformity to the ideal, but "eudaemonia" - the state where all the various spirits in us are most satisfied.

Obama speaks not to our ability to attain an ideal state, but to our ability to attain a more eudaemonic state. The history of attempts to attain ideal states is littered with failed tyrannies. The history of attempts to attain more eudaemonic states, by contrast, includes the United States, most of whose founders were intimately familiar both with Aristotle, and with Francis Hutcheson, whose notion of a "moral sense" was very much in the eudaemonic tradition.

Barack appeals not to a set of Platonic ideals, but to our moral sense as human beings, and as Americans.

I add my applause for this. It expresses so much my own sentiments. I began my march back to political activism with another man of integrity, Dr. Howard Dean. I heard Obama at the Democratic Convention in Boston and the ring of authenticity was pure. I've heard him live twice, in rooms packed with seasoned progressive politicos. Each time he brought down the house. Those of us who had fought the culture wars years ago forgot our battle fatigue and despair.

Whether or not he wins, and I believe he will, I rather feel sorry for people who cannot find his vision moving. As the Bible says, "without a vision the people perish."

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Obama did read your letter, and if he does, I'm willing to bet a pocket of change he responds to you. He's that kind of gentleman.

aMike

Thanks for your beautiful post. So many of us, though battle-hardened and realistic, are nevertheless idealistic at heart. And though older than Obama, we look to his calm, judicious manner as a refreshing and hopeful call to beat our swords into ploughshares and work together for the good of the nation.

More than a quick on the trigger president, we need someone with an almost "judicial" temperament. And that person, I believe, is Obama.

Thanks so much for risking your post. What you have done here Obama is doing in politics. It's well worth the risk.

OBAMA has said it wasn't a very good judgement on his part to take money from Rezko. I haven't heard him say it was a mistake to TAKE MONEY from
Exelon for allowing low-level radioactive runoff in groundwater in a bill Obama wrote. He has TAKEN THE FOCUS OFF THE ISSUES that are critical to this country, with accusations Hillary is hiding something in her tax return she will release in April. Isn't this a little desperate?

I care deeply, as everyone else, that this country moves in the right direction. All I am saying is we need to give CAREFUL consideration to who we elect and not live in a "daydream" of who we want to see. And I am sure Hillary is not perfect but I have never heard about anything that has actually stuck with all the propaganda the Republicans have put out about Hillary for over 20 years. Everything negative about Hillary has been hearsay.

A Big Thanks to Furion for the thoughtful comments for Obama's campaign

An applicant from China to my alma mater who I interviewed just last night observed that HRC was scarred by the attacks on her and Bill in the 1990's and is living out of a "bunker mentality" as a result, whereas Obama represents a "post-partisan vision for America".

Needless to say, I was very impressed by this 18-yr old Chinese student who has never even traveled to the West and whose internet access is limited by the Great Firewall of China, as she called it.

Whether Obama will be able to implement real change is a valid question- but it amounts to the question "Could anyone elected thru the current system make real changes?".

I hope that we get the chance to find out.