Racial barriers broken says US media praising Obama

For once, the leading newspapers minced no words to acknowledge this as they showered praise and gave credit where due to the Illinois Senator, whose pitched battle with Hillary Clinton -- the former first lady who always beat him for white voters -- crisscrossed the entire 50 states of America over months.

"The victory for Mr Obama, the son of a black Kenyan father and a white Kansan mother, broke racial barriers and represented a remarkable rise for a man who just four years ago served in the Illinois Senate," the New York Times said reporting the feat of 47-year-old African-American.

Obama's 'moment of truth' came as he passed the delegate benchmark for the nomination fixed at 2,118 delegates after final Montana and South Dakota primaries, leaving the August convention of the Democratic party at Denver with just the formality to name him against Republican John McCain.

His steadfast and determined rival Hillary Clinton too lauded him warmly even though she did not concede defeat.

"Obama's historic victory reflects nation's dynamism," USA Today titled its opinion for the man who began as an underdog with his campaign punchline 'Change We Can Believe in'.

"A Barack Obama victory in the Democratic presidential race has seemed a foregone conclusion for some time now. Even so, given the length of the battle and Hillary Clinton's enormous tenacity, there was something of an unreal quality when Obama sealed the nomination on Tuesday," it read.

The opinion further said: "Never before has an African-American been a major-party candidate for the highest office in the land. As he declared himself the nominee, Obama left this landmark accomplishment unspoken.

"But history will record this moment as both a monumental political upset and a dramatic statement from a party that was just shaking off its segregationist wing when Obama was born some 46 years ago," USA Today said.

The Washington Post said that Obama's success marked a major milestone for the nation -- a sign of the racial progress that has taken place during the span of the Senator's lifetime.

"But the nomination battle also revealed a racial schism within the Democratic Party, and potential resistance to a black candidate in some parts of the country that will play out in the general-election campaign," it said.

The road for Obama, it seems, was still pretty uphill as Clinton's argument of 'popular vote' and repeated claims by polls about Clinton-backers not preferring him over McCain in the November elections were definitely likely to weigh in Denver convention.

However, what is clear is that possibilities were more on the side of any African-American to be a President of the United States than they have ever been.

"Black president. The two words evoke excitement, dread, great expectations, intense fear, incomprehension, power, the breadth of possibility," the Washington Post said in a feature.

"For some, those two words -- black president -- symbolise the smashing of a glass ceiling, whose splintered shards had fallen on others who had thrown rocks at it in vain," it said.