Obama reaction

I am huge Obama fan. I read Dreams of My Father just after I heard him speak at Kerry’s Convention in 2004. I love, love, love this man. I voted for this man in the primaries, and while I was there I had the pleasure of watching a woman in a walker go up to the check-in desk with her 65-year-old son and explain that he had to go into the booth with her because she’d never voted before. I gave to his campaign (a first for me), and I went to vote in the general election, I was treated to an hour of pure chaos wherein the youngsters amongst us dodged oxygen tanks, canes, walkers, and general elderly enthusiasm to make sure our elders got their chance to vote for a black president. We wanted to make sure that the people who faced down hoses and police dogs and staged sit-ins and suffered everyday indignities so we could have freedoms we often ignored and took for granted, got to vote for the first black president. I love him for that. I love him for what he represents to my people, and to my country as a whole.

As a Democrat who was horrified by the discourse of the past eight years, and weary from being told that dissent was the opposite of patriotism, tired of hearing “you go to war with the leader you have,” and frankly disgusted by the general use of jingoism as a substitution for nuanced thought, I was happy to have a thinker running for office. I was delighted to see a man who reasoned and pondered and picked things apart. He may not always be right, but his process indicated to me that he reached his decisions the right way, a way that allowed for the recognition of bad ideas. I’m not sure he’s seen all of his promise through on this front, but I’m proud of him and happy to have him nonetheless.

I just don’t understand why he got a Nobel Prize.