Barack Obama: The audacity of toast – my first breakfast at the White House
As told to Chris Joseph...Sunday, 25 January 2009
The alarm clock sounds a peal of hope. Of renewal. Of change. This is a new dawn. A bright new day for the American people. I look at the clock. It tells me it is 8.17am. This is our time.
I swing my feet out of bed and look down at my legs. I am wearing pyjamas – or "Ojamas" as my sweet daughter Sasha calls them – bearing the presidential crest. Forty-three Americans have now worn these pyjamas. Not this actual pair, of course.
Those 43 men have got up in times of prosperity and peace. They have nodded off in times of internal division and under the threat of violence and hatred.
One of them – I mention no names on this great day – completely slept through Hurricane Katrina. (OUCH! - OP's extra comment) Still, I am humbled that the American people have trusted me with this sleepwear.
I stand up to go to the bathroom, honoured, as ever, by the support my legs give me. I perform my ablutions. They are many, and they are serious.
We are a young country. And I have a young family. I join them in the kitchen for breakfast. First of all I humbly and gratefully accept a good morning kiss from my beautiful wife Michelle. Then I say hello to our daughters – our hopes for the future – who are bundled up in woolly sweaters and scarves. "Can't we turn up the heating just one degree, Barry?" asks Michelle. "It's minus 12 outside!" ........(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/barack-obama-the-audacity-of-toast-ndash-my-first-breakfast-at-the-white-house-1515169.html
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