One of President Obama’s best speeches

I am not a woman of few words. I usually have a lot to say but for the past few months I’ve been silent uncharacteristically so I know.. well tonight I’m breaking my silence (I’ll reveal more of why I have been so silent in later posts) to say that earlier this evening, in Tucson Arizona President Barack  Obama gave one of the best speeches of his entire presidency.

Obama’s speech didn’t just succeed because it eloquently articulated what most of us have been feeling about the tragedy in Arizona, it succeeded because it reminded us of why we fell in love and voted for him in the first place-it gave us HOPE. HOPE that tomorrow, our collective tomorrow, will be better that any individual yesterday. He made the six individuals that lost their lives whole again in our minds if only for a few minutes. And in that speech he did something that only a president, a great leader, can do he unified our hopes and aspirations and told us what the future can really look like if we gave the best of ourselves, even when we disagree on how to get there,  in celebration of the lives that were so horrifically snatched away from us.

This tragedy doesn’t just  hit close to home for me it comes pretty darn close to breaking  my heart. You see, I live in Arizona. I too can remember going to my first political meeting as a little girl and I too was a member of my student council.  Bushy tailed and bright eyed my love affair with politics has lasted ever since. I can also see members of my own family reflected in all the lives that were lost in Tucson just a few days ago.  The grandmother, the leader, the communicator, the hero, the sweethearts. Leadership, compassion, love, warmth and dedication. The best of who we are as a state, a country, a people, a species was at that meeting last Saturday, January 8th, 2011 I hope that as nation, as we heal and the events of that day grow dim that we never forget that.

*UPDATE*  Here’s a sample of what others are saying about Obama’s Tucson memorial speech.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie thought the speech was ‘excellent’.

According to some even the mighty FOX news was ‘pretty gaga’ over the president’s speech.

And Marc Thiessen over at  The Washington Post’s PostPartisan thought Obama’s memorial speech was brilliant and courageous.

Lou Dobbs is my inspiration

Yes, I know I haven’t written in a minute. But as I often tell my friends and my three or four fans (and yes that includes my mother..lol) I refuse to write just for the sake of writing. No matter how hard I seem to try I just can’t do that. If I’m not feeling an issue or a story or anything for that matter I just can’t seem to blog. To me writing when you don’t have anything to say is almost as bad as talking just to hear your voice and I refuse to do that too.

But over the past few days my inspiration bucket has overfloweth and Lou ‘maybe I’m a birther, maybe I’m not’ Dobbs is the one responsible for getting me to start banging away on the old VAIO again.  Dobbs’ statement, “I am one of your greatest friends,” on Telemundo didn’t just inspire me to start writing it also got me to burst into a fit of laughter and I haven’t done that in a while either.

Maybe Lou Dobbs believes we’ve forgotten or more importantly that we can’t do a YOU TUBE search for his Broken Borders segments on CNN, his insensitive and almost if-not-quite there racist rants or perspectives depending on how you look at it on immigration or his attempts at legitimizing some far, far right opinions and ideas.

But I haven’t forgotten and I’m sure millions more, his fans included, are already gasping with disbelief at his about-face statements on Telemundo but I would be lying if I didn’t at least acknowledge that I expected Dobbs to tone down some of his rhetoric if he was seriously considering running for office. But these statements aren’t simply toned down they are completely opposite to what he’s said before- he’s flip flopped. And flip-flopped really big. It’s probably the biggest one I have ever seen from a possible political candidate and it was completely unexpected.

Over the years that I’ve watched and listened to Dobbs I could never accuse him of being spineless and I honestly respected him for having the audacity and courage to speak his mind to favorable or unfavorable audiences. But this attempt to curry favor with Latinos could only be described as spineless since he’s now attempting to switch sides and appeal to an ethnic group he came pretty close to demonizing for years. That type of double talk might be acceptable on cable news shows but it’s not kosher in real life. In real life those types of people are called hypocrites and everyday folks like me don’t like to vote for hypocrites we like to find out our politicians are hypocrites AFTER we’ve voted for them not before! LOL 

Ironically Lou Dobbs railed against hypocritical politicians and leaders for years now he is seemingly following in their foot steps. Mr.Dobbs has some serious explaining to do if he wants to get even close to a long shot presidential or senatorial candidacy but in the meantime I’m thankful to Mr.Dobbs for being my latest muse.