Gwen Ifill on Barack Obama

I recently attended a conference of teachers of advanced placement courses. It was at the Gonzales Convention Center in San Antonio. 3500 attended the conference.

It was put on by the College Board, the organization behind the AP tests. With so many in attendance, they usually are able to get some pretty high-powered speakers to speak at their plenary sessions.

And if you consider Gwen Ifill, a well-known media talking head who moderates Washington Week a PBS news program, to be a high-powered speaker - and I do - then the College Board came through once again.

Gwen Ifill spoke to the conference at the last plenary session and luncheon.

Now Gwen Ifill has just completed a book called THE BREAKTHROUGH: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama. And contrary to the title, the book is not just about Barack Obama, but reviews the cases of four African-American politicians who make it to high executive office. So her speech was about writing the book, a book that was on sale outside the ballroom in the atrium. A book that she was available to sign after the session.

I managed to video most of her speech, but my memory card filled up before the end of the question and answer period. Too bad, that was the best part.

Fortunately I caught the first two questions. Both of them were about what Ifill thought about Barack Obama. So I excerpted this section of the video and uploaded it to You Tube.

Enjoy.

Oh, what was for lunch?

Mystery Chicken, of course.