Me And Barack Obama

ME: 

 Mr President, to me you are everything the world has said you are in terms of a great leader and I could not resist creating an opportunity to explore your life through the eyes of the world via a surreal interview between you and me…. I thank you for the magic of your brilliant inspiring words and thank those who recorded them that has allowed me to respectfully put this together for my own love of you as a great world leader and for those millions who know that change will come to your great country through your leadership. I would like know what it is that drove you and inspired you, to pursue your dreams.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:
I usually have a minute to sit quietly and collect my thoughts - and recently, I’ve found myself reflecting on what it was that led me to public service in the first place.

ME:
Where do you believe the starting point for those reflections began?.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:
In Chicago - but I am not a native of that great city. I moved there when I was just a year out of college, and a group of churches offered me a job as a community organizer so I could help rebuild neighborhoods that had been devastated by the closing of steel plants.

The salary was $12,000 a year plus enough money to buy an old, beat-up car, and so I took the job and drove out to Chicago, where I didn’t know a soul. And during the time I was there, we worked to set up job training programs for the unemployed and after school programs for kids.

ME:
So you worked at the grassroots as they say – that is something I personally can relate to, my work in community law takes me constantly to those social issues.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: 

 It was the best education I ever had, because I learned in those neighborhoods that when ordinary people come together, they can achieve extraordinary things.

ME:
I believe around that time you also visited your relatives in Kenya. You had a very emotional experience when you visited the graves of your biological father and paternal grandfather.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: 

 For a long time I sat between the two graves and wept. I saw that my life in America—the black life, the white life, the sense of abandonment I felt as a boy, the frustration and hope I'd witnessed in Chicago—all of it was connected with this small plot of earth an ocean away.

ME:
…and that sad experience would have added to your passion and commitment to make a difference. Did you work very long in Chicago?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: 

 After three years, I went back to law school. I left there with a degree and a lifetime of debt, but I turned down the corporate job offers so I could come back to Chicago and organize a voter registration drive. I also started a civil rights practice, and began to teach constitutional law.

ME: 

 So the inspiration to a possible career in politics began there?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: 

 After a few years, people started coming up to me and telling me I should run for state Senate. So I did what every man does when he’s faced with a big decision – I prayed, and I asked my wife. And after consulting those two higher powers, I decided to get in the race.

ME: 

 Hmm.. you must have made an amazing impression – so what happened next, what kind of a reaction did you get as you started moving into the political arena?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: 

 Everywhere I’d go, I’d get two questions. First, they’d ask, “Where’d you get that funny name, Barack Obama?” Because people just couldn’t pronounce it. They’d call me “Alabama,” or they’d call me “Yo Mama.” And I’d tell them that my father was from Kenya, and that’s where I got my name. And my mother was from Kansas, and that’s where I got my accent from.

And the second thing people would ask me was, “You seem like a nice young man. You’ve done all this great work. You’ve been a community organizer, and you teach law school, you’re a civil rights attorney, you’re a family man – why would you wanna go into something dirty and nasty like politics?

ME: 

 And what did you have to say to those?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: 

 I understand the question, and the cynicism. We all understand it. We understand it because we get the sense today that politics has become a business and not a mission. In the last several years, we have seen Washington become a place where keeping score of who’s up and who’s down is more important than who’s working on behalf of the American people. We have been told that our mounting debts don’t matter, that the economy is doing great, and so Americans should be left to face their anxiety about rising health care costs and disappearing pensions on their own.

ME:
When you took office you inherited a global economic recession, two ongoing foreign wars and the lowest international favorability rating for the United States ever. Your campaign agenda was deemed to be ambitious – financial reforms, alternative energy, and reinventing education and health care – all while bringing down the national debt…quite challenging decisions to make.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:
The challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. Because these issues intertwined with the economic well-being of the nation, I believed all would have to be undertaken simultaneously. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, they will be met.

ME:
Speaking to you has been just wonderful and if I may I’d like to continue this conversation in the near future if that’s ok – I’d love to know a bit more about the family man behind the powerful public role.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:
I would not be here without the unyielding support of my best friend, the rock of our family and the love of my life, our nation’s First Lady, Michelle Obama. Sasha and Malia, I love so much, and while she’s no longer with us, my grandmother, along with the family that made me who I am. I miss them and my debt to them is beyond measure.

ME:
Mr President this has been an honour beyond anything I have seen or done and barring objections to my using this as my personal tribute to you for the inspiration you have given me I look forward to our next meeting ..do you think we can meet up again soon?

PRESIDENT OBAMA:
Yes we can!

ME:
Thank you.

(This is my tribute to President Barack Obama - who is alive and well and making a difference to our world.)