Obama books

Finished listening two of Obama’s audio books: The Audacity of Hope and Dreams from My Father.

There are a few key elements which made Obama who his is now.

The first is his Harvard education.  He probably wasn’t the smartest kid in high school, but he certainly knew how to seize the opportunity when it arose.  He seized the opportunity to transfer to Columbia University from the virtually unknown Occidental college, and later on to Harvard.  When you are a minority or a graduate of a state university and you tell the world you want to be the CEO of HP or governor of California, you need to do a hell lot of work to prove yourself.  With a seal from Harvard or Stanford, nobody is going to seriously question your credibility.

The second element is his eloquence.  I haven’t heard of a better politician when it comes to expressing ones points so eloquently and clearly.  His eloquence is based on substance, which is manifested in the lucid writing and organization of ideas in these two books.  Writing definitely makes ideas more lucid and tangible. In fact, I noticed that some of his best campaign lines were originated from his books.

The name “Audacity of Hope” actually came from one sermon given by his pastor Jeremiah Wright.  Obama wrote this sermon in each of his books, so I guess it made a deep emotional  imprint in his heart. This is not surprising to me, because it indeed takes the audacity of hope to carry a self-made black man into the highest office. Without hope, he could have floundered; without hope, everyone of us could have floundered. I wonder in his silent prayers, did Obama say to himself the murmur he heard at his church one day “Thank you Lord, for carrying me this far”.