Letter: America needs an eloquent leader

To the Editor:

On this page recently we saw Barack Obama described as a shallow, ultra-liberal racist and inexperienced man running for the high office of the presidency. What we had in November 2000 was a highly unpolished speaker with mediocre mental capacity, inexperienced in national politics and narrow-minded, who said he would unite this country. We know how well that turned out.

Now Republicans are bring forth another narrow-minded and uninspiring speaker who admits he knows little about economics even after having been in the Senate for years. That to me translates into a candidate who is disconnected from the hopes and dreams of the average American.

John McCain’s main interest seems to be to continue the same foreign policy that has created the very economic crisis we find ourself in today. This will mean another four years (I doubt eight) of what we have just gone through. I will not make the same mistake twice.

We have been told that Obama is not qualified to answer the red telephone in the White House at 3 a.m. I don’t know of any candidate who has done that. I only know what the present occupant did at around 9 a.m. Sept. 11, 2001, seven minutes after he was told in a classroom that our country was being attacked. He sat there dumbfounded and then ran away.

It has been said that Obama does not have foreign policy experience. Just what does “foreign policy experience” mean? Does it means being good at lying or deceiving people? Does diplomacy mean trying to be one up on people you say in public are your friends?

Shouldn’t it really mean treating people as friends and as equals and not secretly as adversaries? The latter ways are the kind of abilities a person acquires in normal, everyday life, and dealing in foreign policy should be no different. I believe this is the way Obama would do it.

What this country needs now is a person who will speak eloquently to inspire people of all persuasions to act responsibly and do what is right for all Americans. It needs new leadership, inspired leadership. That, my friends, is not “empty rhetoric.”

Bill Habedank, Red Wing

Tags: opinion, obama, habedank