America, we cannot turn back, not with so much work to be done...

Speaking to a rapturous audience of more than 84,000 packed into a football stadium, Obama delivered a 44-minute address that was more sharply worded than his usual lyrical prose. He blasted President Bush with some of the harshest language of the campaign, painting a grim picture of economic hardship: rising unemployment, falling wages, plunging home values, and rising costs for gasoline and college tuition.

“America, we are better than these last eight years,” Obama said, speaking from an elaborate stage on the floor of the Denver Broncos football stadium. “We are a better country than this.” Fending off Republican attacks on his judgment, experience and ability to understand middle America, Obama insisted it was Arizona Sen. McCain, his GOP rival, who “doesn’t get it.”

“Well, it’s time for them to own their failure,” Obama went on, as the stadium erupted in cheers. “It’s time for us to change America.”

In closing out the Democratic convention, the Illinois senator seemed to address any doubts about his readiness for what promises to be a brutal fall campaign. He also sought to answer critics who say that his rhetoric, while perhaps captivating, is often vacant; that his message of hope and change, while inspiring, is platitudinous.

“Let me spell out exactly what that change would mean if I am president,” Obama said.

He pledged “to end this war in Iraq responsibly and finish the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan,” wean the U S from Middle Eastern Oil within a decade, cut taxes “for 95% of all working families,” and deliver “affordable, accessible healthcare for every single American.”

Whatever happens in November, Thursday night’s unprecedented scene was a testament to racial progress in America, a nation founded by slave owners and cleaved by civil war followed by a century of acrimony. Less than 50 years ago, people with Obama’s complexion were forbidden from voting in some states.

... contd.