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  Posted By: rossmorgan @ 02/13/2008 10:56:54 AM

  I believe Mr. Zakaria is echoing what Anthropologists have been saying for years. The ability to travel cultural distances can lead to more substantive and accurate views of the world. Obama's complex identity and personal biography make him a compelling candidate not only because of his international experiences as a youth, but because he emobodies many aspects of American identity. He is bi-racial, grew up poor yet attended elite institutions for his formal education. Thus, Barack Obama, in a sense, fits in everywhere and nowhere at the same time. His unique identity politics compell him to be a uniter. This is not simply rhetoric but comes from a desire to see the world through different prisms as Mr. Zakaria puts it.

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  Posted By: Zatoichi @ 01/29/2008 2:12:26 PM

  An american foreign policy based on a non-european heritage vantage point is exactly what the world needs right now. Hillary will never know the indignity of sitting in an american public cafe and have an old white lady sitting in the next table scurry away for fear of your dark color, exotic dress or foreigh toungue. This is the end of the remnants of wetern european dominated cultural imperatives which have lingered in subtle ways to continue to dictate the terms of global egalitarianism. Just as the U.S. had 2 civil wars to liberate african-amerians, so too will the citizens of former european colonies have to purge themselves of their european masters, and thank god we may now have an American president to lead the way. And yes it is intuitive understanding, mainly because it is existential - certainly John Kennedy understood about being the outsider as a catholic in his wasp dominated world of the previous century.

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  Posted By: danee41 @ 01/14/2008 1:02:01 AM

  He isn't simply saying that a person must be from another country to handle foreign affairs. He is saying that being able to personally identify with other non-Americans and "[feeling] it in your bones" is just a powerful way, not the only way.