Community Organizers

Guiliani and Palin took Obama to task last night for his college job, and just-after-college job - Community Organizer - a job which Palin doesn't view as having "real responsibilities."

Some other community organizers:

The Alaska Native Brotherhood and Alaska Native Sisterhood

ANB was formed in 1912 to address Native rights in Alaska. It is an organization still active today.

Elizabeth Peratrovich

Elizabeth and her husband Roy were just two of many members of the Native community to stand up to injustice, and fight for civil rights in Alaska. Elizabeth is still honored each year with a state holiday in Alaska.







Cesar Chavez



Arizona's own labor and civil rights leader - first a farm worker, than a farm workers leader.








Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.



Paid the ultimate price for what he, and so many others, organized in the American community.



Countless men and women throughout the centuries have been community organizers, and only in the last century were they sometimes given a title. Their responsibility is great, made much more so because they must motivate people, by the very definition of their job, to change the status quo. It's not a job where you come in, make sure the budgets are balanced, hire and fire whom you want, and leave to the next guy. Community organizers come in so many times to address what politicians won't.

What is interesting about the Guiliani/Palin attack on the jobs Obama had during and just after college - mainly getting a community to help itself, to be stronger - is what came out, from Fred Thompson - chosen to speak by the McCain campaign! - in the convention about what McCain was doing during his own academy years:

"In high school and the Naval Academy, John earned a reputation as a troublemaker. But as John points out, he wasn't just a troublemaker; he was the leader of the troublemakers.

Although -- although loaded with demerits, like his father, John was
principled even in rebellion. He never violated the honor code.

However, in flight school in Pensacola, he did drive a Corvette and
date a girl who worked in a bar as a exotic dancer under the name of 'Marie, the
Flame of Florida.'"

Umm....

Okay, I'm not sure why anyone would think those were selling points, not to mention throwing attention to how McCain barely scraped through the academy. Seriously, having had Bush this long, why does anyone think low intelligence in a President is even remotely funny anymore? Is this the "laugh so you don't cry" part?

During college, Obama picked up responsibility before he'd even graduated from Harvard magna cum laude, learning the ropes at organizing whole communities of people, before moving on to politics.

During the Naval academy, McCain was a self-proclaimed "troublemaker" who liked fast cars and loose women, and even after his genuinly heroic stand as a POW, still couldn't give up either.
Call me boring, but I'll take the nerdy, responsible guy over the adulterous, educationally underachieving guy any day.