That's not what I do as president, that's not what I do as Commander in Chief.
"and", I
so wanted him to add,
"it's not what I do as a man". Because for me, the fundamental difference between the candidates is that one acts with the expansive purpose of a human being who is a member of a species that he believes in, loves and wants to protect, and the other doesn't.
I trust, relate to and believe in someone who engages a considered approach to complex subjects, and then has the respect to tell me about it, like when he relayed his changed mind about gay marriage:
But I have to tell you that over the course of-- several years, as I talk to friends and family and neighbors. When I think about-- members of my own staff who are incredibly committed, in monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together. When I think about-- those soldiers or airmen or marines or-- sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf-- and yet, feel constrained, even now that Don't Ask, Don't Tell is gone, because-- they're not able to-- commit themselves in a marriage.
At a certain point, I've just concluded that-- for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that-- I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.
I appreciate someone who uses real ideas and thinking as evidence to reach informed conclusions about high-emotion problems, especially in issues when he actually
is a victim (the following quote is an excerpt from a
2008 npr transcript of Barack Obama's "A More Perfect Union" Speech:
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners — an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional of candidates. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts — that out of many, we are truly one.
I know enough about the way Obama makes decisions to know that he is working with the right intentions, and that he is a man of integrity, dedicated to serve something greater than himself. And I know that I trust him.
I want the person deciding my future to be a reasoned, measured statesman who thinks carefully about what he does, uses his resources--including his own intelligence--in service of responsible action. I want someone with a long view. I want someone who thinks whole pie, not just about money, but about value. The long-term value of empowering the middle class, of loving our planet, of respecting women as if they were people, of empowering and including the disenfranchised. These ideas are good management! When people feel cared for and valued they thrive and they contribute. I want a leader who believes and trusts in the good of the world.
And I really don't want a hot headed, ambitious, mean-spirited, small-minded, yuckball making decisions for me and the people I love.