Amazing grace

I fully expected Barack Obama to hit it out of the proverbial ballpark in Tucson. He did, and then some. But I wasn't expecting the sheer poetry of the "ball’s" trajectory as it arced high into the clear Sonoran night. The president’s eloquence, heart, astuteness and buoyant audacity were on full, brilliant display. By the time it ended, there wasn’t a dry eye in the auditorium – or, I suspect, in the homes of millions of Americans, including mine. Here was the spellbinding orator, the “skinny kid with the funny name,” of the Democratic 2004 convention. Here was the besieged candidate who in 2008 looked America square in the eye and enlightened it about race, saying, “In no other country on Earth is my story even possible.” Here was the humbled president-elect in Grant Park who waxed majestically about “a long time coming” and America’s “defining moment.” Obama was all of those men rolled into one last night. President Obama is already worthy of Christina Green, the little girl who is now “jumping in rain puddles” in heaven. The question is, are we?