Here goes

Dear Barack,



I'm going to dive right in here and say that you are the most impressive public figure (person) that I have ever become aware of.

I guess I first became aware of you sometime early on in the Democratic nomination circus.I saw a speech you made, can't remember which one, doesn't matter, and my ears pricked up. "This man can speak" I thought. As the speech continue I got more and more excited. Instead of Hilary's " I this, and I that, and I've been around ALL the goings on, so I know how to play the game" With you we got issues. Issues devoid of all the crap that goes on in politics. A call to a new vision in the political arena, where well reasoned pragmatism would hold sway rather than ideology. (The linguistic link with idiot always makes me smile.) A regime where the problems faced would be met with a caring attempt to do the best possible.



Other speeches followed and I realised that you had spent a great deal of effort thinking about what it is to be human. I saw an insight into the lives of those of us who are less fortunate and a compassion that moves you. I saw sentiment, yet at the same time a steely determination. Not to get your own way, but to facilitate a coming together of the disparate threads of society, to weave a new cloth of the people, by the people



I watched in amazement as the way opened up for you. People responded to your message and I started to feel that there was hope that the US could clean up it's act. As the nominations dragged on, it gave you more of an opportunity to display your way of sticking to the issues and not playing the man (or woman in this case). When you got the nomination, I knew, short of some disaster, that we were going to have a remarkable man in the White House.

And that acceptance speech. Grace and magnanimity, confidence and humility. And to top it all, your inaugural speech. I stayed up till some ungodly hour to catch it live.By halfway through I was in tears, and I'm not even an American. To have somebody finally talk some sense and say it with your own face, to call to the better nature of man, to encourage us to common ground rather than the battle field. And all said with heart and force and not a little cool.

I've since read your book Dreams from my Father, and I can see how you got to where you are (spiritually/ethically). I admire a man that takes adversity and forges from it an understanding that allows him to be generous with his spirit, and in that generosity sees that all of us live with adversity of varying kinds. I guess that you've come to the realisation that if we all work together to help each other, then the world could be a WHOLE lot better.Simple isn't it?

I'm in the middle of reading The Audacity of Hope. I'm pleased that you've given allot of thought to your families needs in all this.One needs to keep a balanced life to see clearly.

Well I'm getting tired now so I'll end here, have a good day Barack,

Ed