Sorensen Endorsement Is Important!!

[monmouth]

This is an important endorsement. I remember Ted when he was young!! Hahaha, no really, since Joe left I'm sort of adrift, and this endorsement really does matter. Hope you all enjoy...


The importance of every possible vote on Super Tuesday compels me to send the following explanation of my support for Barack Obama to everyone I can reach.


TO: Family, friends, friends of family, professional colleagues and others

FROM: Ted Sorensen

SUBJECT: To Urge Voting for Obama on Tuesday, February 5 ("Super Tuesday")

I truly believe that February 5th will choose the next president of the United States, and that this choice is more important for our country's future than any presidential election since 1932. After almost eight years of Bush incompetence, indifference and disasters, Senator Obama is the one candidate who can restore America's moral authority and regain the respect essential to our security.

The way Senator Obama thinks and speaks about our problems and politics, the way he seeks leadership not for the power and glory but for the things we need to accomplish, is more like John F. Kennedy than any president or presidential candidate in either party since that terrible day we lost JFK in 1963. Despite my age and infirmities, I have campaigned for Senator Obama in seven states, used my voice and pen repeatedly on his behalf, and have become more determined to see his nomination with each new passing revelation of the true character of his opponents.

An Obama presidency will be a turning point in this country, and I ask all -- with the sound of my voice or the reach of my pen -- to join me in making history. Our children and grandchildren will be grateful if you do.

[Inuca]

1. I do not know how much it matters, but

it is really touching and thought provoking. Thanks for posting this.

[ray of light]

2. More info about Sorenson & why his endorsement is important to many.

Info about Sorenson (For those unfamiliar).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Sorenson

Sorensen was President Kennedy's Special Counsel & Adviser, and primary speechwriter, the role for which he is best remembered today. His inaugural address for the new president exhorted listeners to "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country". This call to service is the phrase still most closely associated with the Kennedy administration today. Although Sorensen played an important part in the composition of the Inaugural Address, the famous turn of phrase that everyone remembers from that speech was actually written by Kennedy himself, and taken from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. This has been acknowledged by Sorensen as well as documented in several substantive biographies of JFK, most notably Profile of Power by Richard Reeves.

He served as Special Counsel & Adviser to the president, with responsibility for the domestic agenda; however, after the Bay of Pigs debacle, President Kennedy asked Sorensen to take part in foreign policy discussions as well. As a result, he played a critical role in resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis, drafting Kennedy's correspondence with Nikita Khrushchev.

After Kennedy was assassinated, he helped the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, for several months, as LBJ recalled in his White House memoirs. Sorenson wrote LBJ's first speech to Congress, as well as his first State of the Union address.

Video on Barack
http://www.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DhupgC1d-St8&ei=F2WkR9DJMqegiAH5_42SAQ&usg=AFQjCNFfdsz2eKCZ4EwHN5w5cu9WkDIs2A&sig2=GnllgMdKDnzzsHmhRrUCQA
Ted Sorensen: Bill Clinton Wasted His Skills In Office/with video
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/31/ted-sorensen-bill-clinto_n_84366.html

"There's a sense in this country that Washington badly needs to be changed. The election of Obama will not only change the players in Washington, it'll change the game itself."
In a series of videos for the website Bigthink.com Sorensen discusses such topics as what the Clinton-Obama rivalry says about the future of the Democratic party and how this election compares to the election of 1960.
In the following video, Sorenson discusses Bill Clinton's skills as a communicator and how, in the eyes of Sorensen, he squandered those skills while in office.

A Time to Weep, by Ted Sorenson
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0621-13.htm

(This will make you cry!)

This is not a speech. Two weeks ago I set aside the speech I prepared. This is a cry from the heart, a lamentation for the loss of this country's goodness and therefore its greatness.

Future historians studying the decline and fall of America will mark this as the time the tide began to turn - toward a mean-spirited mediocrity in place of a noble beacon.

For me the final blow was American guards laughing over the naked, helpless bodies of abused prisoners in Iraq. "There is a time to laugh," the Bible tells us, "and a time to weep." Today I weep for the country I love, the country I proudly served, the country to which my four grandparents sailed over a century ago with hopes for a new land of peace and freedom. I cannot remain silent when that country is in the deepest trouble of my lifetime.

I am not talking only about the prison abuse scandal, that stench will someday subside. Nor am I referring only to the Iraq war - that too will pass - nor to any one political leader or party. This is no time for politics as usual, in which no one responsible admits responsibility, no one genuinely apologizes, no one resigns and everyone else is blamed.

The damage done to this country by its own misconduct in the last few months and years, to its very heart and soul, is far greater and longer lasting than any damage that any terrorist could possibly inflict upon us.

The stain on our credibility, our reputation for decency and integrity, will not quickly wash away.

Last week, a family friend of an accused American guard in Iraq recited the atrocities inflicted by our enemies on Americans, and asked: "Must we be held to a different standard?" My answer is YES. Not only because others expect it. WE must hold ourselves to a different standard. Not only because God demands it, but because it serves our security.

Our greatest strength has long been not merely our military might but our moral authority. Our surest protection against assault from abroad has been not all our guards, gates and guns or even our two oceans, but our essential goodness as a people. Our richest asset has been not our material wealth but our values.

We were world leaders once - helping found the United Nations, the Marshall Plan, NATO, and programs like Food for Peace, international human rights and international environmental standards. The world admired not only the bravery of our Marine Corps but also the idealism of our Peace Corps.

Our word was as good as our gold. At the start of the Cuban Missile Crisis, former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, President Kennedy's special envoy to brief French President de Gaulle, offered to document our case by having the actual pictures of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba brought in. "No," shrugged the usually difficult de Gaulle: "The word of the President of the United States is good enough for me." (more at link)

[ginnyinWI]

3. The July/August issue of The Washington Monthly

as a cover story article By Sorensen titled, "The New Vision: The Speech I Want the Democratic Nominee To Give". (Sorry not available online) Kind of lets you know where his head is at. He must see something really good in Obama.