Politics
Obama using new political freedom to tackle domestic agenda
PALM CITY, Fla. — In a gym usually home to the Hyde Park Academy Thunderbirds, President Obama spoke about his own home late last week — and the trouble it faces.
He warned students and teachers that the fragility of families, the easy violence of guns, and a threatened education system are failing Chicago’s South Side, where he once worked as a community organizer and began his family.
Change “requires us reflecting internally about who we are and what we believe in,” he told the rows of uniformed students lining the blue breeze-block walls in bleachers. “And facing up to our own fears and insecurities, and admitting when we’re wrong.”
More than he ever did in his first term, Obama is describing the country as he believes it should be, not the one it has been for much of the past decade. It is an inspirational technique of the community organizer and of the upstart national candidate he once was.
