The 17 Minutes That Launched a Political Star

washingtonpost.com — The Hawker jet lifted out of Springfield, Ill., under midnight darkness, and Barack Obama leaned back into a leather chair. In his lap rested a copy of the keynote address he would deliver in three days at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. He thumbed through its pages again, even though he already had committed most of the 2,300...