Unity, hope must conquer division, hate

[cal04]

BY LEONARD PITTS JR.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/campaign-2008/story/750521.html

The killers would have worn top hats. Having already murdered 102 African Americans, 14 by beheading, they would have driven at top speed toward Barack Obama, leaning from the windows of their vehicle, dressed in top hats and white tuxedoes, firing guns.

That was the plan, according to law enforcement officials who disrupted it a few days ago. Now the alleged conspirators -- white supremacists Paul Schlesselman, 18, and Daniel Cowart, 20 -- are in federal custody, an appropriately bizarre coda for the presidential campaign of 2008.

I mean, it's fitting, isn't it, that the campaign end with yet another appeal to fear, yet another portrayal of the Illinois senator as Not One of Us? It makes sense, after two years of viral e-mails, blog postings, talk radio rants and Fox News reports depicting Obama as a Communist socialist radical Christian secret Muslim black militant-marrying atheist-raised terrorist fist-bumping America-hating Manchurian candidate trained to subvert the United States from within.

Well, if that's what some folks think he is, let me tell you what I hope he is.

(snip)
You know what I hope Barack Obama is? I hope he is reconciliation -- the end of the 1960s at long last. And the beginning of something new.

[TKolmsi]

1. Reconciliation: I like it