All hail Obama?

I may as well admit it. The coming, 44'th President of the USA is a master speaker. I read his oratory dating from this morning, delivered in front of a rapturous, electrified crowd of party faithful, and I cannot do anything else than award Mr. Obama an A.

In this speech there were undeniable traces of (allusions) at least two identifiable past masterpieces of the genre political speeches. Reading it closely, it was anything but hard to hear echoes of Lincoln's Gettysburg address of 1863, as well as Reverend Martin L. King's famed speech in front of over half a million attendees in Washington a hundred years later.

I'm certain that there were several people in the crowd who, despite being carried away by the sheer excitement and elation, recognized the similarities between Obama's catchy lines and the almost hallowed, oral performances of two of his own personal sources of inspiration. And I'm certain that the allusions were put there on purpose.

Barack Hussein Obama, aged 47, is the first African American to hold the premiere position of Chief Executive of the USA. And although he is not a direct descendant of original slaves, his ethnicity still gives him credibility as a representative of the post-slavery generation that now sees the struggle for civil rights brought, in a symbolic sense, to a glorious, political conclusion.

Martin Luther King had a dream. Barack Hussein Obama now embodies the 'first fruits' of that dream. And so, as Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, as MLK unified blacks in a struggle to gain suffrage, so Barack Obama probably harbours an ambition to quell the influence of that sickening virus - racism - that has plagued US society for so long; not by working as a partisan President for the welfare of AfricanAmericans, but by showing that race should never again be a criterion when looking for the best man for the topmost job in the world.

So we all hail Obama? Let's see first if his skills in oratory compares well with his ability to deliver in real terms: his own climb is no less steep than that of the US itself. Starting from rock bottom, the US and its Chief Executive has a lot of tough issues to handle. And human nature hasn't changed one iota since that age-old fall from grace.

So let's harness the impulse to hail him as a new political Messiah figure. Let's realise that no one man can accomplish all that's expected of him, but maybe this one can pull out a few policy aces out of his sleeve? The world would benefit from that, and not only the 50 states that comprise the USA.