On Being Inspired

Today, I watched President Obama's speech at University of Maryland College Park on CNN.

Health care, as one might expect, was the focus of his speech. He called on young people to back health care reform and to be the voices of our shared American future.

“I need your voice,” shouted the President. His words were nearly drowned out by chants of “We’re fired up, we’re ready to go,” words that echoed a story Obama told about learning the phrase during his campaign. “We will change the world with your voice. We need the voice of the young people to transform this nation.”

Whatever you may think about the health care debate, the man can give a speech. Not only that; he has the ability to inspire people.

I am 23 years old. Though I remember the Clinton administration, I wasn't old enough to understand the importance of the issues he tackled or even to comprehend the gravity of politics in general. Like most of my peers, I essentially grew up during Bush's presidency. It was during the last eight years that I came into political consciousness. For better or worse, George W. Bush was the man who introduced me to American politics.

I didn't think President Bush was a bad man, and I still don't. But his residence on the opposite side of the political spectrum and severe deficiency in eloquence left me uninspired, to say the least.

True inspiration, the ability of a politician to simply make someone stop and listen, for me was relegated to the pages of history books. Roosevelt and Kennedy; black and white pictures were all I knew of great speech giving.

But President Obama -- well, let me say this. Obama has an uncanny ability to make you trust him. He chooses words that are poignant and says them in ways which convey the meaning behind them. I feel as though he is speaking to me personally.

True, part of this experience is the fact that I happen to agree with what the president is saying. I think one would be hard pressed to find a staunch conservative who is has been similarly touched by President Obama's speeches.

However, even his critics admit that Obama's talent for stirring rhetoric is striking and has brought a stark change to the voice of the White House.

For me, it's like being introduced to the patriotism of the past: the kind of fervent, "the Yanks are coming" Americanism that my grandparents have told me defined life during World War II. The rousing, revolutionary spirit of the 1960s that followed JFK's famous declaration, "Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country." It's what made John Kerry testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971 and what drove Ted Kennedy to become the "Lion of the Senate."

I have always been a proud American. But until now, the reasons I loved my country were not based on experiences of my own. They were passed down to me from my family and are our nation's collective heritage.

With President Obama, this changes. For the first time in my life, I find myself inspired not by old stories or recordings, but by a living, breathing person who as fate would have, lives only a short distance away from me.

I feel blessed to be living in Washington, DC at this time in our nation's history, and to be part the American future President Obama says I will help him to create.