So President Obama got his Nobel today.  And a lot of people, including myself, were feeling more then a tad cynical that he’s gone to Oslo to receive it, right at the very moment his justice department is vigorously defending John Yoo …an act that seems to gut the very heart and soul out of the Geneva Conventions, and makes a mockery of the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals.  Obama has greatly disappointed me in so many ways, and will probably keep on doing so. 

And yet I am so very, very glad he’s president.  The difference between him and the republican mob here at home was evident the moment he started speaking.  Reliably, over and over, this man speaks to our hopes and aspirations, and not our fears.

Somewhere today, in the here and now, in the world as it is, a soldier sees he’s outgunned, but stands firm to keep the peace. Somewhere today, in this world, a young protester awaits the brutality of her government, but has the courage to march on. Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty still takes the time to teach her child, scrapes together what few coins she has to send that child to school — because she believes that a cruel world still has a place for that child’s dreams.

Let us live by their example. We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us, and still strive for justice. We can admit the intractability of deprivation, and still strive for dignity. Clear-eyed, we can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace. We can do that — for that is the story of human progress; that’s the hope of all the world; and at this moment of challenge, that must be our work here on Earth.

Of course, we need to hold him to the ideals he takes his stand upon.  But this is much, Much better then the alternative the republicans are offering. What kind of America do you want…one that’s constantly being jerked around by the things that frighten us, or one that is constantly being called home to its hopes and aspirations?

He does it, and not without being blunt about the kind of world we live in, and that our chances of complete success are slim. Oscar Wilde once said we are all living in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.  I don’t for a minute think we are All living in the gutter.  But if you don’t look at the stars beyond it you will never find your way out.  Still, the gutter must be aknowledged.  Because it is going to put up a fight to keep you and I and everyone from leaving it…and time and again it will win.  The street-wise idealists are exactly the kind of leaders we need right now.