A Marvelous Little Answer

The way the NY Times tells it, Barack Obama was standing in the Flying Star Café Commissary in Albuquerque when a 23-year old woman put him on the spot. "How do you ground yourself?" she asked, and then, "How do you keep yourself true to the things you say?" Obama looked around, looked down, talked about his life, but searched for a way to give a better answer.
So he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pile of trinkets and "tchotchkes" as only the NY Times can spell it. "I have all these things that people give me,” Obama said. "This eagle that a Native American woman gave me, this woman who gave me her lucky poker chip. "They hand these to you say and say, y’know, ‘I want you to do well but I want you to help me.' "A guy I met wanted to buy me a beer in Pennsylvania even though he had just lost his job and couldn’t afford to put gas in his car and do a job search. The capper: "If you are asking them to vote for you... if you are asking for their trust, you better be serious. You better not over-promise."	(Photo: Alex Brandon/Associated Press)
The comments to the Times article dripped with sarcasm, until an equal but opposite number of people defended their guy. Yet reading it, you have to think about the kind of guy who would reach into his pocket to show a woman how he keeps centered. Now just maybe, I'm just saying, some smart reporter should contact the young woman who asked the question and ask her if she were asked to ask him that, or ask if she worked in TV commercials as a child. Yet I stand touched by Obama's simple, empathetic gesture. (NY Times story here). Carole