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Charles Kenneth Williams is an American poet who started writing poetry at 19, after taking only his required English classes at University of Pennsylvania.  He began his career as a[…]

The challenges ahead for President Obama.

Question: What challenges would Obama face as president?

C. K. Williams: Oh, he’s inheriting an incredible mess. The last eight years have been-- have put America in such jeopardy in so many ways, the fact of these trillions of dollars of debt we have now. That’s going to be a huge burden to arrive with, the fact that global warming has-- nothing has been done about it. Even McCain now says he’s-- that he thinks something has to be done about it. Lord knows he changes his mind so often we don’t know how long that will stay but-- and the Iraq war of course is a huge issue and the economy, unemployment, immigration. The person who-- It’s not a job one should really want. These are really incredible issues. I think from what I’ve seen of him his basic intelligence will allow him to assemble a team-- basically a President is a team; it’s hardly a single person-- will allow him to assemble people to help begin those problems. And the fact that he’s such an inspired orator, which some people almost hold against him, I think is very, very crucial at this time, that someone will be able to speak and convince people what they have to do, convince the country, convince them that there’s hope first of all. America has never apparently in all the polls expressed so much of a lack of hope in anything, and I think the fact that he is that inspiring could be very, very important- will be very- assuming he wins will be very important.

 

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