Way off the hustings

Wednesday

My friend and Nieman Fellow classmate at Harvard, Barney Mthombothi, can't fathom how I could be away from the U.S. during such an exciting presidential election year. Barney used to show up Americans on our fellowship with his vast store of facts about U.S. history and its presidents. He didn't outshine us on purpose or with any hint of arrogance; he is just that smart and a tireless reader of history. He stays up until the wee hours in Johannesburg, he tells me, to follow political news from the States.

Today is one of those days I do feel the absence from the scene and an appetite for hours of TV/newspaper/political scientists' commentary. I tried valiantly to watch the video of Obama's speech on race in Philadelphia online, but it's not happening with these Internet connections in Gaborone. What could I do? I called up the transcript and read the speech on the NYT Web site, and it's one of the most remarkable, refreshing political speeches I have ever read in my years of following politics and politicians in the United States. It is monumental in the way it lays out our country's racial history from its earliest days through today. I can't say enough about its clarity, its incisiveness, its bluntness and its call to our highest aspirations as a country. I wish I had a carload of Obama bumper stickers. I'm finding in Botswana that they are treasured gifts for locals and expats alike. Obama's speech in Philadelphia, snippets of which can be found on African television, will make those stickers even more of a hot commodity.