[Bill,
March 19, 2008]
Obama's Philadelphia speech, one day later
Yesterday, I praised Obama. Today I come to pick nits. (Just kidding.) Somehow, it didn't seem right to start tearing his Philadelphia speech apart, bit by bit, yesterday. I can't exactly explain why, but in some cases, there's something to unseemly about immediately responding. It makes it a game more than a real discussion.
And Obama's speech yesterday was not a game, but a call to a real discussion. I still say it's brilliant in many of its evocations and it's sophisticated in its diagnosis of the current state of race relations. That amount of information, as well as the highest ideals that the speech evoked, required, at least to me, a respectful period of silence to consider the words.
That doesn't mean today I'm going to go after him today. Jonah Goldberg has done a good job of summing up where the speech was effective and where it was less so.
If I were to rank Obama's discussion yesterday on the continuum of Democratic candidate speeches, I'd rank it somewhere between Ted Kennedy's Cause Endures and William Jennings Bryan's Cross of Gold.
UPDATE: Others are saying it's more like Nixon's Checkers speech. Got to think about that for a while.
UPDATE2: Here's another helpful column from National Review. It appears that I'm in the minority (heh) among conservatives on this speech.
And by the way, that was a bit of a joke about the Cause Endures speech. Read it. Kennedy was wrong about everything. What makes the speech work is the quote from Tennyson. Obama's speech, on other hand, contained more truth that usual. Yes, as usual, Obama wedded his evocative rhetoric to a statist program, but much less so than usual. So I ignored that part. Others may find it harder to do so.
And Obama's speech yesterday was not a game, but a call to a real discussion. I still say it's brilliant in many of its evocations and it's sophisticated in its diagnosis of the current state of race relations. That amount of information, as well as the highest ideals that the speech evoked, required, at least to me, a respectful period of silence to consider the words.
That doesn't mean today I'm going to go after him today. Jonah Goldberg has done a good job of summing up where the speech was effective and where it was less so.
If I were to rank Obama's discussion yesterday on the continuum of Democratic candidate speeches, I'd rank it somewhere between Ted Kennedy's Cause Endures and William Jennings Bryan's Cross of Gold.
UPDATE: Others are saying it's more like Nixon's Checkers speech. Got to think about that for a while.
UPDATE2: Here's another helpful column from National Review. It appears that I'm in the minority (heh) among conservatives on this speech.
And by the way, that was a bit of a joke about the Cause Endures speech. Read it. Kennedy was wrong about everything. What makes the speech work is the quote from Tennyson. Obama's speech, on other hand, contained more truth that usual. Yes, as usual, Obama wedded his evocative rhetoric to a statist program, but much less so than usual. So I ignored that part. Others may find it harder to do so.
"I can no more disown him [Wright] than I can the black community"
Let's play with that, shall we?
"I can no more disown Nathan Bedford Forrest than I can the white community".
See how easy it is?
I am disappointed that Obama thinks of Wright as the uncle who makes racist statements. Clearly as Eric notes in another post, you don't sit in the pews for 20 years and not know who he is for what he is. The difference with an uncle is that they truly are your blood relatives and you cannot just walk away so easily. Does that church do good - it sounds like it probably does - but it doesn't need the rhetoric of Rev. Wright to have done good. So, I don't believe that I would have followed down Obama's path at all and I think he dismisses himself too easily.
In general, I find Wright's comments no more offensive than I find comments that those that dissent the war or question Bush are traitors or not true soldiers. Those comments are no more sophisticated Rev Wrights. They ignore the complicated history of the war in some of the same ways that people want ignore the complicated history of race and racial equality. I find many anti-homosexual views to be full of drama, and full of hysteria. Just because I find these things offensive and hateful, doesn't mean that I expect to see the Right abandon their preachers, politicians, and talk show hosts (and they don't).
I do not think that Obama's speech gives a free ride to Wright. Hate has always been around. One of the reasons you see hate spewed about Democrats and Republicans is because it is socially allowed. A certain number of people enjoy that experience - it makes them feel better or something - I don't know. I certainly get angry, but I don't see that as the high point of my existence or what I am here to do. So, it is artificial to think racially centered hate is bad, but it is OK to hate Democrats or Republicans because of their party affiliation. In all realms, putting hate first can paralyze useful action.
It strikes me true that the path out isn't to sit comfortably on your own "moral high ground," but to seek solutions to what can be solved. Some times many baby steps are better than no steps when the path is tortuous.
I think Obama's speech was a bit of political suicide. It displayed some of his flaws in a way politicians can't do and get elected. It also discussed race in ways that acknowledged that the issues are more than black and white (read that shades of gray). Obama could have issued a series of denials knowing the public's short attention span would let this issue slip away, but he didn't. I can't imagine Clinton giving such a speech. I can't imagine Bush giving a speech that where he accepted a variation on his world view. I do think McCain is obviously more courageous than Clinton, but even he probably wouldn't tackle this particular problem.