Barack Obama
Related: About this forum"Welcome Home, Welcome Home, Welcome Home"
Currently watching the President start his welcome home to troops at Fort Bragg with these words.
If you have a chance watch the clip, it will cheer you up.
He had some funny comments about the first lady and I am guessing that the President is going to get lucky tonight.
"Guys your duty is to marry up, punch above your weight",
But hearing this President say 'Welcome Home' I also thought of how far he has brought us from the embarassment of George Bush.
When Ronald Reagan was President and I was living overseas if I met somebody casually and they would bring him up I would simply say, "I don't really understand those guys, I am Canadian."
This President allows us to come home. Not American exceptionalists but we don't have to be completely embarassed by being an American because who the President is, and in that way we can all come home metaphorically.
When I meet someone at a Denny's who wants to rant against the President I let them go on for a while and then I ask them a single question, "What current leader in the world do you think does a better job than President Obama?" Then I ask who in the last 20 years was a better world leader, including US Presidents. Silence. "So you agree with me that he is the best world leader who has been on the world stage in the last 20 years?, I agree with that too."
Now with the changes in DU3 people are allowed to have more say in shaping their particular group so that people with common interests can get together and share with people who they know share the same frame of reference. Its kind of a refuge for those of us that engage a lot of right wing fanatics. It allows us to share a common agenda with progressives that are more ambigious about the President but with whom we share large areas of agreement.
That's kind of like a home. You go there for protection against your enemies. You don't agree 100% with everyone else who lives there. So the BO(G) is starting to feel as a good political home for those of us who like and support this President and want to support him as he brings more progressive change to this country.
Welcome Home.
Cigar11
(549 posts)Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)Wait Wut
(8,492 posts)A lot of happy men and women...families, children. A lot of grateful citizens.
Thanks to our servicemembers and thank you, Mr. President.
riverwalker
(8,694 posts)what a moving post. Welcome Home to us all.
jaxx
(9,236 posts)The Iraq War is over. For all who said it wouldn't happen, that President Obama wouldn't do it.....this is what Hope and Change is all about. You bet it happened, because one man had the courage to stop the war.
The speech was for the troops, for their families. A Commander-in-Chief who is grateful for all they did.
Did anyone catch this during the speech:
President Obama says" because of you our world is a better place, our country is safer" A Marine yells back "Because of YOU!"
That says it all.
gateley
(62,683 posts)That just moves me to tears.
JTFrog
(14,274 posts)Great post!
Thanks
Hutzpa
(11,461 posts)a dream home that is...but don't fuck up again, this is from one fuck up
to another fuck up....
Good to have you back here
Will be looking forward to cracking some nuts together over the Christmas period.
Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)great white snark
(2,646 posts)Well done.
gateley
(62,683 posts)ellisonz
(27,709 posts)My favorite part:
Now, nine years ago, American troops were preparing to deploy to the Persian Gulf and the possibility that they would be sent to war. Many of you were in grade school. I was a state senator. Many of the leaders now governing Iraq -- including the Prime Minister -- were living in exile. And since then, our efforts in Iraq have taken many twists and turns. It was a source of great controversy here at home, with patriots on both sides of the debate. But there was one constant -- there was one constant: your patriotism, your commitment to fulfill your mission, your abiding commitment to one another. That was constant. That did not change. That did not waiver.
Its harder to end a war than begin one. Indeed, everything that American troops have done in Iraq - all the fighting and all the dying, the bleeding and the building, and the training and the partnering - all of it has led to this moment of success. Now, Iraq is not a perfect place. It has many challenges ahead. But were leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people. Were building a new partnership between our nations. And we are ending a war not with a final battle, but with a final march toward home.
Number23
(24,544 posts)"Welcome home." God, I get chills just thinking about it.
K&R