A time for heroes.

When Obama gave his once-in-a-generation More Perfect Union speech back in March, a speech that captured the reality of U.S. race relations with a clarity and forthrightness that opened a door for true discussion about a historically difficult subject, the media reported on it for about as long as a dog walker lets his/her pooch linger at the foot of a birch tree. Transcendent it may have been, but when the RNC yanks the media's leash, they don't resist. It was back to "Jeremiah Wright! blah blah why is Michelle Obama so angry? blah blah ...."

So it is with McCain's announcing his VP choice the day after what many are calling the most important political speech in modern U.S. history. I can only imagine the breathless analysis by pampered pundits shrewdly 'crediting' McCain for stealing Obama's 'thunder'. Institutional cynicism long ago replaced integrity as the lifeblood of North American media organizations. Pundit poodles sniff each other's butts and snap at upstarts who don't. Nothing's real. Nothing matters. An easy attitude when you're in the upper 1% of income earners and living, as Bob Somerby often writes, deep within the gilded recesses of modern-day Versailles.

I loathe McCain as a candidate and so have little interest in his running mate. Not so a celebrity-driven media fueled by trivia that will hunt exclusive photos and interviews with Alaskans cashing Gov. Sarah Palin anecdotes for a few seconds of notoriety.

So it's a perfect time to revisit what Obama said Thursday night about his opponent's cheap attempt to equate his 20 years of public service and inspiring rise with celebrity worship:

The fundamentals we use to measure economic strength are whether we are living up to that fundamental promise that has made this country great, a promise that is the only reason I am standing here tonight.

Because, in the faces of those young veterans who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, I see my grandfather, who signed up after Pearl Harbor, marched in Patton's army, and was rewarded by a grateful nation with the chance to go to college on the G.I. Bill.

In the face of that young student, who sleeps just three hours before working the night shift, I think about my mom, who raised my sister and me on her own while she worked and earned her degree, who once turned to food stamps, but was still able to send us to the best schools in the country with the help of student loans and scholarships.

When I -- when I listen to another worker tell me that his factory has shut down, I remember all those men and women on the South Side of Chicago who I stood by and fought for two decades ago after the local steel plant closed.

And when I hear a woman talk about the difficulties of starting her own business or making her way in the world, I think about my grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle management, despite years of being passed over for promotions because she was a woman.

She's the one who taught me about hard work. She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me. And although she can no longer travel, I know that she's watching tonight and that tonight is her night, as well.

Now, I don't know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine.

These are my heroes; theirs are the stories that shaped my life. And it is on behalf of them that I intend to win this election and keep our promise alive as president of the United States.