Grave Error’s Wise Choice: Obama for President

Dear Senator Obama,

I fully understand that Grave Error is not the Washington Post or the New York Times. A Grave Error endorsement might not sound like much, considering the only people who read this blog are my parents, brother, two uncles, one cousin, and my Berber girlfriend. And although I am no Kennedy, I am now offering you my full endorsement, something I have never done for any politician since I have been eligible to vote. As a matter of fact, and I know this sounds like pure convenience, I am even offering my professional services to your future Administration with the hope that you will become elected to the White House.

The fact of the matter is that I believe in you, Senator Obama. I have watched with utter disgust as our former president has blatantly disrespected hundreds of thousands of supporters of your cause and vision, and in doing so has shamefully disrespected the U.S. presidency once again. And that, Senator Obama, is where I see the enormous difference between past and future, hatred and hope, entitlement and integration, regression and change. I think that every time we hear other politicians hate, your message of hope is reinforced. While the Clinton’s represent the cultural divide and inter-party hatred of the 90s, you, Senator Obama, are offering a political rhetoric of an entirely new vocabulary.

Senator Obama, I have lived abroad for almost eight years now, precisely the number of years that President Bush has been in office. During these years, I have witnessed the U.S. lose all of its global credibility, good will, and moral standing. I have witnessed how Bush’s “War on Terror”, “Axis of Evil”, and shamelessly false pretexts for war in the Middle East have turned, not our enemies, but our friends against us. We lost our global allies in Iraq and have turned the Middle East into a landscape of people who have lost faith and hope in democracy. Who is going to lead us, Senator Obama, into a new century? Will it be our past rulers who want their last names to entitle them? Will it be our lobbies and war mongers?

I have managed business students from more than 80 different countries, trained young attorneys from around the world, and have worked to build a global user-generated WiFi community. I have seen how our reputation as a nation has been destroyed, how we have to lower our heads when showing our passports, or soften our voices in the streets so as to go unnoticed. Our environmental and gun policies, our attachment to the death penalty, our unwillingness to sit down and negotiate or even listen will all be our demise. And it is happening. We have ceased to innovate and are starting to look like a democracy of antiquity.

Senator Obama, I used to consider offering my services to our government. I am an attorney who has worked as a lawyer, academic, and businessman with a wide array of experience in all sorts of international and domestic matters. Yet during the past eight years, I would have been ashamed to join any of our governmental agencies. How can someone work for the State Department, the Justice Department, or Homeland Security and not be ashamed to look at themselves in the mirror after our spectacles in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo.

Your speech on Saturday night in South Carolina was, without a doubt, the most moving political speech in my lifetime. Your message was so positive and so contagious that your nay-sayers’ hatred only strengthened your cause.

Remember on the campaign trail to be patient, not to change course, and to be faithful to your voice. Everything else will fall into place as you get better and better at transmitting your message. I am not quite sure you realize just how transcendental and important your candidacy is for this country. For people to get so excited and mobilized in record numbers and in the primaries to support your candidacy — a candidacy on the eve of Bush’s departure for an African American with a foreign name who is uniting and not dividing– is probably the only beacon of light left that this country’s nominal “American values” may still be salvageable. So, maybe your administration will not make a difference, maybe it can not. But I sincerely believe that if your campaign does not prevail, at least in the primaries, then there is little hope for the future of our country.

If you win, Senator Obama, I would like to help out and work for your government – any deputy secretary position will suffice. We can discuss the details later. And in the meantime, let me know how I can help from abroad, part-time of course!

My very best regards,

Eric
Editor and Chief
Grave Error