As I listened, and especially watched President Obama’s speech the evening of September 9^th, 2009, I was, at one point, filled with an odd sense of pride when the specific television camera angle included the top three leaders of America all in the same shot.

First off, let me attempt to explain this somewhat odd feeling that seemed to envelope me. The camera shot included our President, a black man, our Vice President, a white man, and our Speaker of the House, a white woman.

This, to me, seemed to be the epitome of what America should be. A place where anyone, male or female, from any ethnicity, can all have the same opportunities. To me, simply seeing these different ethnicities and genders together and realizing the diversity of the whole situation seemed to be the source of this wonderful feeling. But, this pride feeling was short lived when I considered what, in recent days, has become of the America that I once knew. A sense of anger with a touch of quite possibly embarrassment quickly replaced it when I began to consider what many of our past and present elected leaders has done to contribute to the current downward state of this country. And, it seems to be a downright tragedy that the American leaders have taken their elected positions for granted and once elected, become basically invisible and impervious to the very voices that elected them.  Now, maybe its me, but I faintly remember hearing “of the people, by the people, for the people” during a high school civics class, and this very plainly and quite clearly, at least to me, defines a representative directly appointed as the voice of the people.

However, somewhere along the course of the history of American politics, this specific aspect drastically changed and these elected officials began to ignore this voice and simply look at the special interest with self-serving motivations.

Therefore, in my opinion, it is this specific item that has struck the heart of the common folk to the point that they have begun to fight back. This “larger than thou” political mentality of our elected officials is the primary target and can be attributed to the current source of many Americans’ asserting their voices loudly during the numerous town hall meetings and “tea parties” that are beginning to spring up across this nation. I then realized that there are also many other “angry” people too…

Suddenly, the pride feeling was back! God Bless America!