US Politics

Why The World needs Obama / Not McCain

Senator John Mc Cain.

Age 72  / 29th August 2008

Career education / US Naval Academy Annapolis, graduated 495th in a Class of 500

To the Navy Born

McCain was born on August 29, 1936, in the Panama Canal Zone. He was one of three children born to John S. McCain Jr. and his wife, Roberta. McCain’s father and grandfather were both admirals in the United States Navy, the first father and son serving at that rank in naval history. Quick to anger even as a toddler, McCain used to hold his breath until he passed out when thwarted. After bouncing from school to school in the tradition of a child of a military family, McCain was sent to high school at the elite Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia. There, his temper remained short and repeated discipline appeared wasted on him. “I thank God every day there weren’t drugs around when I was growing up,” he told Jonathan Alter of Newsweek. Despite his best efforts, McCain graduated from Episcopal High in 1954.

After graduation McCain went off to follow the family trade at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. However, the storied disciplinary effect of military school had little effect on the rambunctious young man. He continued to push the buttons and limits of his superiors, accumulating an impressive number of demerits for small infractions and barely squeaking by academically to graduate in the bottom five of his class in 1958. Even after being accepted to train as a naval aviator, McCain was irrepressible and irresponsible, ditching one airplane into Corpus Christi Bay and flying another so low in Spain that he managed to cut power lines and deprive part of the country of electricity for a time. For all his wild behavior, though, McCain also displayed a strength of character beyond his years. He refused to participate in hazing rituals at Annapolis, for instance, later explaining to Alter, “I just thought it had become too demeaning.” Instead, he did not suffer bullies gladly, defending underclassmen and other victims alike in his typical bellicose fashion.

As a young navy pilot, McCain was in his element. “I enjoyed shooting rockets and dropping bombs and shooting off guns,” he recalled to Esquire’s Charles P. Pierce. “Nobody in their right mind wouldn’t enjoy that. . . . You’re a young, single guy, and you go out and you fly for a couple of weeks, then you come in for a week and carouse. . . . Nobody deserves to get paid for that.” He gave up the single part of the equation in 1965, when he married Carol Shepp and adopted her two children (the couple later had a child of their own, too), but the lure of adventure was more difficult to abandon. So McCain volunteered for service in Vietnam.

Drawn from “To the Navy born”  A Brief Exerpt from McCain Biographies

Senator Barack Obama

Age 47 years / August 4th  2008

Tertiary Education

Columbia University in New York City
Majored in political science, with a specialization in international relations

Harvard University
Studied law at Harvard, where he was elected the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. Graduated Magna Cum Laude.

A brief exerpt from the Obama Biography

The Early days

When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His father eventually returned to Kenya, and he saw his son only once more before his death in 1982. Ann Obama married another East-West Center student from Indonesia. The family then moved to Jakarta, where Obama’s half-sister Maya was born (Obama has other half-siblings from his father’s later marriages). When Obama was ten he returned to Hawaii under the care of his grandparents, and later his mother, for the better educational opportunities.

He was enrolled in the fifth grade at Punahou School, a prestigious academy that once taught the Hawaiian royal family. He graduated with honors.His College experience and careerUpon finishing high school, Obama studied for two years at Occidental College in California, before transferring to Columbia University in New York City. There he majored in political science, with a specialization in international relations. Upon graduation, he moved to Chicago, where he took up community organizing in the Altgeld Gardens housing project on the city’s South Side. While in Chicago, he joined the Trinity United Church of Christ.

He left Chicago for three years to study law at Harvard University, where he was elected the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. He graduated Magna Cum Laude. While working one summer at a corporate law firm in 1989, Obama met Michelle Robinson, whom he married in 1992. Robinson is also a graduate of Harvard Law.

While in Chicago as a community organizer once again, Obama organized an aggressive voter registration effort that aided in the election of President Bill Clinton and Senator Carol Moseley Braun. The campaign registered over 100,000 voters. Soon after, his talents earned him a position at a local civil rights law firm, and he became a lecturer of constitutional law at the University of Chicago, where he served as a professor until his election to the U.S. Senate.

Obama biography continued 6 min video

On November 4th 2008, American voters will decide which of these two men will occupy the Oval Office as the 44th President of the United States of America. For the rest of the World and America’s sake, let’s hope they get it right.   Go Obama Yes we can.  

 

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