Obama: The Anti-Bush?

I was watching C-SPAN2 the other day when Obama's foreign policy speech came on. Now, two months ago I wasn't really paying any attention to Obama. Given his relative lack of experience, I tacitly thought he was probably in the race only because he was attractive and black. Many people* think that it would be good for the country to have a president who was black or female, and I thought that Obama was probably in merely because he was black and telegenic. Once I started paying attention it became clear that I was very, very wrong.

As I suppose I've made clear, I've become more and more impressed by Obama, in part because he has gone out of his way so often in the debates to avoid cheap shots and lame sound bites. Over the past few weeks I've suddenly come to realize that this guy seems to be a genuinely excellent and exciting candidate.

Obama seems to be intelligent, intellectually honest and active, articulate, knowledgeable, sincere, compassionate and even wise. He seems to be genuinely driven by a desire to make the world a better place by bringing out the better America. He seems genuinely interested in uniting the country rather than dividing it.

In short, he seems like the anti-Bush.

And that's about the best thing I think one could say about a candidate.

I try not to fall for a candidate too quickly, but I've got to say, Obama has gotten my attention in a big way.



*Myself included. I think that it'd be good for us to have a black or female president, though being black or female is only worth a few points in my book. I'd never vote for a person solely or largely because of their race or sex. But I would, say, vote for a female over a male if they were equally or almost equally qualified. I figure forty-three white males in a row is a bit excessive to say the least...