Ted Sorensen, President John F. Kennedy's advisor and speechwriter, introduced Senator Obama. Sorensen -- who knows a thing or two about what makes for genuine leadership and foreign policy vision -- told the crowd about how a certain former Senator from Massachusetts, who was labelled as "inexperienced" and "too young," boldly led America through one of its greatest crises.
Obama took to the stage and directly contrasted himself with the "experienced" Beltway insiders who made a choice not based on what was best for the American people, but what was politically expedient:
[T]he conventional thinking today is just as entrenched as it was in 2002. This is the conventional thinking that measures experience only by the years you’ve been in Washington, not by your time spent serving in the wider world. This is the conventional thinking that has turned against the war, but not against the habits that got us into the war in the first place – the outdated assumptions and the refusal to talk openly to the American people.
Well I’m not running for President to conform to Washington’s conventional thinking – I’m running to challenge it. I’m not running to join the kind of Washington groupthink that led us to war in Iraq – I’m running to change our politics and our policy so we can leave the world a better place than our generation has found it.
So there is a choice that has emerged in this campaign, one that the American people need to understand. They should ask themselves: who got the single most important foreign policy decision since the end of the Cold War right, and who got it wrong. This is not just a matter of debating the past. It’s about who has the best judgment to make the critical decisions of the future. Because you might think that Washington would learn from Iraq. But we’ve seen in this campaign just how bent out of shape Washington gets when you challenge its assumptions.
Obama laid out a comprehensive plan to responsibly end the war and reestablish America as a force for peace and stability in the world. He vowed to ensure that there is no safe haven for Al Qaeda, to secure loose nukes and renew our efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons in the world, to talk frankly and directly to both our friends and enemies, to strengthen the State Department to make diplomacy a priority, to reverse Washington’s reliance on secrecy by establishing a National Declassification Center, and to get politics out of intelligence by giving the Director of National Intelligence a fixed term. You can read the full details of his plan here.
Senator Obama concluded by urging us to resist the cynics who tell us real change isn't possible:
Yes, it’s easy to be cynical. But right now, somewhere in Iraq, there’s someone about your age. He’s maybe on his second or third tour. It’s hot. He would rather be at home. But he’s in his uniform, got his combat gear on. He’s getting in a Humvee. He’s going out on patrol. He’s lost a buddy in this war, maybe more. He risked his life yesterday, he’s risking his life today, and he’s going to risk it tomorrow.
So why do we reject the cynicism? We reject it because of men and women like him. We reject it because the legacy of their sacrifice must be a better America. We reject it because they embody the spirit of those who fought to free the slaves and free a continent from a madman; who rebuilt Europe and sent Peace Corps volunteers around the globe; because they are fighting for a better America and a better world.
And I reject it because I wouldn’t be on this stage if, throughout our history, America had not made the right choice over the easy choice, the ambitious choice over the cautious choice. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think we were ready to move past the fights of the 1960s and the 1990s. I wouldn’t be here if, time and again, the torch had not been passed to a new generation – to unite this country at home, to show a new face of this country to the world. I’m running for the presidency of the United States of America so that together we can do the hard work to seek a new dawn of peace and prosperity for our children, and for the children of the world.
The room of mostly young people -- people who have spent their entire college experience in an America at war in Iraq -- erupted in standing applause. They were passionate about the promise of an America that is not reviled, but respected, across the world. They were hungry for something new -- for someone who questioned, rather than caved to, conventions. The cynics in the room -- if there were any left by the end of the speech -- were drowned out by the roar of hope.
Click here for the full text of the speech.
Comments are closed on this story.