Barack Obama RULES

Barack Obama, the Senator from Ilinois, is a landmark in many respects. He certainly has a grace and a force about him that is all too absent in politics these days. I'm not crazy about some of the things he's voted for (the bankruptcy bill, I believe, as well as confirming far too many of Bush drones) but in general, he's absolutely spot on in his convictions and his prose. I'd be honored for him to represent me, if I still lived in Chicago.

He gave a commencement speech at Knox College on June 4, and I'm pasting the speech below since it's so freaking great. Here is the link:

Barack Obama's commencement speech at Knox College .

Here is one line that I just loved:

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. You need to take up the challenges that we face as a nation and make them your own. Not because you have a debt to those who helped you get here, although you do have that debt. Not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate than you, although I do think you do have that obligation. It’s primarily because you have an obligation to yourself. Because individual salvation has always depended on collective salvation. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.