Thursday 23 October 2008

Barack Obama: Instructional Designer


(image by BohPhoto)

This is why I love the guy. When asked by Joe Klein about trusting his instincts he said this:

He said the first really big one was how to react when incendiary videos of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's black-nationalist sermons surfaced last spring. "The decision to make it big as opposed to make it small," Obama said of the landmark speech on race relations he delivered in Philadelphia. "My gut was telling me that this was a teachable moment and that if I tried to do the usual political damage control instead of talking to the American people like ... they were adults and could understand the complexities of race, I would be not only doing damage to the campaign but missing an important opportunity for leadership."

Whoa.

I've never, ever heard a politican talk like that - seeing the negative stuff as a chance to talk about the bigger picture.

And the fact that he uses the language of an instructional designer to describe it pushes all my nerd buttons at once.

Watch the speech

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