I just got finished watching Barack Obama talk to the men and women in Fort Myers, FL and like yesterday's town hall there were no dissenting voices (of merit) in the crowd. There was a single dissenter in yesterday's crowd, but the exchange was so charming on the part of both parties it simply doesn't qualify as negative. It has been talked about endlessly, so I won't bother repeating it here.
But as I listened to the same old rhetoric in Fort Myer something magical happened. In the question and answer sessions a woman got a hold of the microphone and in a delicate voice pleaded for help. She and her family seemed to be living in dire poverty, and here she was begging the President to help her family.
I will not lie to you, the obvious pain and suffering in the woman's voice was too much for me to bear. I turned the volume down as this sort of pain is too much for me. The President of the United States set down his microphone, walked off the stage to Henrietta Hughes and kissed her on the cheek while she tried to control her emotions. He said he would have his staff talk to her after to see if there was anything they could do to help.
Here it was finally, having been hidden in the hateful rhetoric of the Right for far too long, here was that HOPE we voted for.
It was a stunning moment of simple human kindness.
Update: Here is a link so you can watch this moment yourself.
Louis Armstrong, What a Wonderful World
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