Reed: Obama for President - YES

The coin has fallen, and I take the role of Obama advocate. It's not too difficult, either, because when one considers the foibles and fallacies of the previous eight years (can you say "I'm the decider"?), it's easy to assume that anyone who has said he/she won't follow current policy is the obvious choice.

Barack Obama's critics will first and foremost stress his inexperience, especially when it comes to foreign policy. John McCain lambasted Obama for offering his opinions on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in spite of the fact that "he's only been to Iraq once, and has never been to Afghanistan." Talk about throwing down the gauntlet! And what happened? I think McCain has learned the truth in the old adage, be careful what you wish for - you may get it.

Obama went to Iraq and Afghanistan, talked to the troops and commanders, and conferred with leaders of those and other countries whose interests are affected. He then moved on to Europe, where he spoke to more than 200,000 people in Germany, many of whom were waving American flags as a tribute to one who they perceived to be a viable ally and leader.

Tell me please, when was the last time our allies in Europe felt compelled to wave our flag instead of burn it?

Be that as it may, the "inexperience" argument may fly with some, until we consider some history. Another politician from Illinois made it to the White House in 1861. Prior to his ascension to the Presidency, Abraham Lincoln served eight years in the Illionois General Assembly and two years in the U.S. House of Representatives - a total of ten years in political office.
Compare that to Senator Obama - seven years in the Illinois Senate, three years in the U.S. Senate, ten years in political office. Whoa - coincidence? Experience is only as important as the skills and wisdom we gain from it. Many experienced politicians, Hoover, Johnson and Nixon among them, failed the nation and her citizens through poor leadership and unwise decisions in spite of years of experience.

Leaders are indeed born, and from his early years, Barack Obama has proven himself a leader. Coming from a modest background, he graduated from Columbia University and went on to Harvard Law School where, in 1990, he became the first African-American President of the prestigious Harvard Law Review (see http://www.notablebiographies.com). After graduation from Harvard he turned down high-paying jobs with Manhattan law firms to move to Chicago and focus on civil rights law.

This is the kind of decision-making skill that gets one's head carved into a granite monument on a mountainside - foregoing the pleasures that money and power can bring to work for the greater good. And it is decision-making skills, as opposed to experience, that make the difference between a politician and a statesman.

Perhaps the most compelling reason I have for believing that Senator Obama is indeed qualified to lead our nation rests in a story that began in October of 2002. Support was growing for the Bush Administration's push for military action in Iraq. No facts supported such a strategy, so the administration used lies, innuendo and faulty intelligence to prod Congress into approving a war resolution. Sixty-one percent of Democrats in the House and Senate approved the President's request for authorization of military force against Saddam's regime.

(For more information, see http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution).

And it is interesting to note that many, including 2004 Presidential nominee John Kerry and Obama's primary rival, Senator Hillary Clinton, both subsequently expressed regret for their support of the resolution. The 2006 Congressional elections were a clear sign that the American public was tired of a trumped-up war that Americans now felt should never have been waged.

But in a speech in Chicago on the eve of Congress' approval of the resolution, Obama, then a state Senator from Illinois, spoke passionately of the need to avoid the war in Iraq. In his speech he called on America to avoid what he referred to as "a dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics" (see citation link, next paragraph). And while he agreed with President Bush that Saddam Hussein was a dictator whose removal would be applauded, he noted, correctly, as the facts have demonstrated, that Saddam's government and military were bankrupt and impotent and posed no grave danger to the world.

Senator Obama then spoke words which still ring with prescience. "I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences." (The text of the speech can be found at many sources, including http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/28/7343).

When a young, vibrant, passionate man stands and presents himself to the nation and the world in such a powerful and prophetic manner, the reasonable person can only listen, and observe, and agree - this man, Barack Obama, has the mind, the heart, and the soul of a leader. I say, let's let him lead. To read Dano's point of view, click here.