As I devour more and more pages of Obama's "Dreams From My Father", I cannot help but call my reaction to the news of his presidential candidancy.

At first, there was so much of hullabaloo over him and Hillary Clinton that I mistakenly thought the race is between the two of them. Even when I realized that only one of them will be nominated from the Democrat side, I was rooting for Hillary - not because she is a woman, but because she seemed to have some experience of US political scene, even if it wasn't on a first-hand basis.

Then Obama emerged as the candidate from the Democrats side. It was scary to think that if McCain became the president and passed away while in office, it would be Sarah Palin who would be at the helms. Equally scary was the prospect that if Obama became the president and got assassinated while in office, it would send the US financial markets and the rest of the wobbly world economy into a tailspin. I didn't envy the Americans over their Catch22 situation. :-)

But reading this book now, a different picture emerges of this man. Of course, I am still not 100% convinced that the book is written by him - my distrust of the politicians runs deep. :-) However, it's hard to ignore the fact that he really did work at the grassroots level to bring about a change.

And that kind of makes me sad for him. Now that he is occupying the nation's highest office, will he be able to bring about such changes? Or will he himself change, for the worse? Afterall, it is true what they say about absolute power corrupting absolutely :-(