Obama wows 'em
The Billings Gazette | May 20, 2008
By TOM LUTEY
How well did Barack Obama connect with onlookers at his West High town hall meeting?
He got a standing ovation Monday for calling for more school, more homework and on a 70-degree day less than two weeks before graduation.
When he declared that no military veteran in America should ever be reduced to sleeping on the street in a cardboard box, the crowd roared as if they'd all, at some point, put cheek to concrete in exhaustion.
Even when the boo birds booed, which they did when Obama evoked high oil prices and tax breaks for the rich, their catcalls flattered the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.
The Illinois senator told the packed venue of 3,000 that he was running for what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called "the fierce urgency of the now."
"We're at a defining moment of history, at two wars, one against al-Qaida in Afghanistan. We're also involved in a war that I believe should have never been authorized and never been waged, the war in Iraq."
The crowd, which had formed a line for entry more than two hours before Obama spoke, roared with agreement.
