One of the year’s highlights will be US President Barack Obama patois greeting at the University of the West Indies town hall meeting.
Dear Editor,
Every time I hear President Barack Obama speak or give the State of the Union address, I am truly proud of him. We don’t see eye-to-eye on every issue, but overall, history will be kind to him.
This is against the background of the Republicans in both the House and the Senate’s mandate to block and obstruct him in just about everything during his entire presidency. And let’s not forget his beautiful and charming wife, Michelle, who is eminently qualified in her own right for all the work she has done as the United States’s pioneer black first lady.
For him it was an uphill task but he endured. He inherited a recession and he put the economy back on track. His other accomplishments include: the bailout of Wall Street, the banks and General Motors, saving thousands of jobs in the process. He ended two costly and unnecessary wars, brought unemployment down to five per cent and gas prices under US$2. Recall also the Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare) and the 50-year embargo against Cuba that was lifted.
His sights are now focused on finding a cure for cancer and he has asked his affable vice-president and friend, Joe Biden, who lost his son Bo to the disease, to lead the charge on that.
But who can forget a younger, feisty and fiery Barack Obama who burst on the scene while addressing the National Democratic Convention with his “there’s no Black America, White America or Asian America; we are the United States of America. Or there are no blue states or red states; we are the United States of America”. Or his compelling 2008 campaign slogan of “Yes, we can”. Or his momentous visit to Jamaica speaking the country’s dialect.
He’s smart, charismatic and articulate, which reminds me very much of Jamaica’s own Michael Manley. But this shouldn’t surprise anyone, both he and his wife are Harvard educated lawyers.