The Obama speech

Rod, you are very generous in your praise of Barack's speech. There's a lot here to absorb. As a body of rhetoric there is much to admire in its technical excellence.

One objection I had (and it may seem minor to some) was his "use" (in the most manipulative sense) of his maternal grandmother. How tasteless of him to claim that she uttered -- privately and in confidence -- racially insensitive comments. The comparison -- and suggestion of equivalence -- of her private reservations with the 20+ years of public statements by his pastor does not wash. In addition, we don't choose our grandparents but we choose our pastors. To equate the two is deceptive. To trash her as he did speaks volumes about this guy's character.

The woman is in her 80s and still alive somewhere in Hawaii. Would be interesting to get her side of the story. Did she give her grandson permission to share this personally embarrasing story? And, by the way, is it true? Barack reminds me of the commercially-successful motivational speakers in this country who exploit their family history to craft persuasive and entertaining messages. Some of the stories these speakers share often paint unfavorable and embarrasing portraits of family members.

Maybe fair, maybe not. He was saying it in the context of his love for Rev Wright the person, with flaws. People can and do disown family. Obama would not disown his grandma nor would he disown Wright.

One of the things I've had to become more comfortable with as I got older is that everyone has flaws, sometimes quite big ones, but we love them anyway.

It's true that Wright is Obama's pastor, but he also the guy that brought him to Christianity - come now fellow Christians - ain't that worth quite a lot? If I were Obama, I think I'd keep him.

I agree with Mel. His cynical equivocating his grandmother with J-Wright was disgusting. The rest of his of speech is littered with a number of straw men, red herrings and tu quoques. He may have proven himself and adept politician, but as a human being, not so good.

I'm sure the Obamatons will show up, programatically shouting down any doubt and singing their creepy hosannas, but I've had enough of the man. The only thing I like about my voting for him is that it let me vote against Clinton.

Obama would not disown his grandma nor would he disown Wright.

IOW, his grandmother's private fears and concerns were equivalent Wright's repeated, thought-out public pronouncements. I don't what's more repulsive, the man who says this kind of thing, or the dupe who buys into it.

And until someone can prove that it was the racial anger which attracted Obama to Wright rather than other much more positive things which the man teaches 90% of the time, I don't at all buy that it would have been good or right much less Christian, for Barack Obama to have walked away from Wright. Not everyone feels that their purpose in life is to act as human approval or disapproval meters with all those who come their way.

Not all of us are running for the most powerful position in the world. That subtle distinction continues to evade you, I see.

"I don't think he would actually govern as anything but a liberal in terms of race."

I assume you have a concrete idea of what you mean, and maybe it's a shared meaning among conservatives, but would you elaborate for the rest of us?

Fair question?

And until someone can prove that it was the racial anger which attracted Obama to Wright rather than other much more positive things which the man teaches 90% of the time...

Except that I'm not sure that the disgust of many over Rev. Wright (this guy here comes closest to expressing mine, though he is more tentative) isn't that Obama exactly "supports" this in the sense that he "supports" universal health care. No ... the concern, rather, is that he considered this sort of stuff a minor thing or (to use your metaphor) a "10 percent" matter, and not as a deal-breaker.

...but if it comes to light that John McCain views his purpose in life as to act like a human approval or disapproval meter of all those who pass his way...

How about the man he looks to as one his chief guiding influences in his life? I think Obama should have some kind of opinion on his morality, as Wright's the guy who's been preaching about morality to him almost every Sunday.

This was Obama's big test, and he failed. Big Time.

Grandma used the "n" word! Wow, what a guy!By throwing his grandma under the bus -a private person who loved and raised him and who had some weak private moments of insensitivity-Obama shows himself to be an ungrateful piece of garbage. Comparing the weak private moments of a woman who loved him to that of a "man" who publicly and loudly proclaimed hatred for this country is a disgrace. Using the "n" word is a weak moment is bad, but damning "Amerikkka" loudly and publicly is far worse. Obama didn't choose his grandma, nor did she choose him. Given what we know about his whacky globe-trotting anthropologist mother, it seems particularly ungrateful to bring this up. But he voluntarily choose and followed Wright.

Victor, don't you have any friends who have views or beliefs that you find wrong and even disturbing? Possibly good friends, who you would rely on, but with whom you would avoid talking about these topics? If you meet somebody who treats you well and demonstrates the behavior of a good person, and then you later find out that they believe something that you think is wrong or outrageous, do you automatically stop associating with them? Or do you think about the larger context of your relationship and make a (maybe hard) decision about how you will relate to this person? What if this person is of an older generation, one that holds beliefs that might have been much more widely accepted (though still morally wrong) in their own time than they would have been today? What if the person had personal experiences that make these views, if still morally wrong, somewhat understandable? Do you discount all of this and simply reject the person out-of-hand?

Reverend Wright is not just Obama's pastor. He's his friend. He's the guy who brought Obama to his faith. On a purely personal level, even if you don't agree with Obama's decision, I hope you can see that it might have been a difficult one. And as for Derek's point about different standards applying to those who run for office, I would hope that a candidate with integrity would not choose to make such a difficult personal decision based on political considerations.

...blaming right-wingers for "exploiting" racial anger when he'd just got through saying that whites have some reason for being angry.

I think it's the "exploiting" that's the problem -- not the anger. And this is exactly what Obama called his former pastor on.

And Mel, unlike you I don't doubt Obama has geniune faith -- but either way, if starting to attend church for social reasons discredits anyone's belief then we should also be suspicious of the millions of Americans who attended church during the 1950s and 1960s when it was simply the right thing to do.

I had an aunt and uncle who were virulent racists. (My Dad also held prejudices, nut not with the firceness of his siblings). The uncle died before I was assigned to serve as the first white pastor of an African American congregation, but by aunt popped a rivet when she heard it.

I loved her, as I loved my uncle, as family. I loved them because I saw them as more than just the racial bigots that they unquestionably were.

That is precisely the kind of love that Obama describes having for his pastor.

Being honest about my own family members bigotry is not "throwing them under the bus." And I did confront them directly about their dreadful commonets about people of color...especially African Americans. It is simply telling the truth and offering an example of hope.

Even from ancestiors such as these, could come someone who served gladly and successfully as the pastor of a black congregation. It was a testimony of hope for humanity in general and America in particular.

And it was no exageration.

Bob M: "Even from ancestiors such as these, could come someone who served gladly and successfully as the pastor of a black congregation."

Good for you. You must be so proud of yourself.

I liked it at first, but now I find it to be rather lame and too calculating. Way too much evasion and rhetorical tricks. As for as disowning his white grandmother, he did that a long time ago.

So much blah blah blah from people whose ballots would display no punches next to the Obama name in any situation. I do declare, all this "moral outrage" is doing a number on the curl in what's left of my hair. Time to find something substantive to get worked up about.

I'm biased towards Obama, but haven't decided whom to vote for in November. Unless I see more evidence of dishonesty from him, I'll take him at his word, and this speech only improves my opinion of him.

Mel and Derek: You sure sound like you've got an axe to grind. I don't know enough to be sure of course, but I know enough to disengage, for now anyway.

The speech will probably not help him at all. The impression that I got was that it was nothing more than self-justifying hot air, but then I cheerfully admit that when I see Obama I want to shout, "Folks, the Emperor is naked!"

The test will come in the Pennsylvania primary. The latest polls have Hillary burying him. We'll see if he can come back.

Rebecca:

I think Wright's views are unacceptable simpliciter, at least in a pastor, and cannot be put into any kind of context or "the sum of what he has to say." I'm curious that if COMPASSION justifies overlooking Wright's horse dung, is there anything that cannot be overlooked in a pastor or one's own pastor?

Michael:

There's disturbing and there's disturbing. What I'm hearing is an eagerness to squirm around, contextualize, water-down or relativize views that are absolutely unacceptable, and it is most telling what people seek to "put in context" and what they consider to be disqualifying (Obama's conflation of Wright and affirmative-action opponents being a classic example).

The speech will probably not help him at all.

The speech largely puts a cap on the weekend of negative stories about his preacher. He's regained the message. The 24-hour news stations will be broadcasting over and over again snippets from his speech, which was masterfully delivered. The story will no longer be dictated by the conservative pundit class, who drove the story all weekend.

In that sense, the speech was a success. Even the rawest, Obama skeptics have to acknowledge he has taken control over the story and now we are left listening to sputtering pundits trying to be dismissive of a speech that will be seen as effective and moving by the vast amount of America that don't have blogs and book contracts.

Mel and Derek: You sure sound like you've got an axe to grind. I don't know enough to be sure of course, but I know enough to disengage, for now anyway.

Yeah, I do have an axe to grind. I voted for the guy, and a couple of weeks later he turns into a patronizing jerk who won't come clean about this character he's hanging around with. He spends day after day insulting our collective intelligence with half-measures and excuses, and when he gives a speech he spends more time blaming others than the people responsible for the mess he's in. Worse still, he shamelessly uses the woman who raised him as cheap rhetorical shield to avoid any serious responsibility.

The speech he should have given would have listed the controversial statements in quotation, and made it clear that he not only finds these views wrong, but nutty and immoral. He could say afterwards that he still has affection for Wright and won't disown the man. That I could take. At least it wouldn't be the kind of condescending crap he's been dishing out to us, the line that runs along the lines of "If Wright says something that offends you, I condemn it."

In my opinion, the man has sunk from being an earnest and tolerable lefty to a certified slime. If you think that's intemperate of me, I'm sorry. But the guy has really gotten to me, along with his many shills who are apparently willing to rationalize just about anything--though they'd be much less forgiving if it was someone on the right we were dealing with.

I read it but did not listen to it. I thought it was an extremely good speech -- even better than I expected, and I thought he would rise to the occasion. All that said, I think the political benefit of this speech will be relatively short lived. My guess is that Obama wins the nomination, with Hillary closing down the stretch but running out of delegate-room to beat him. So Obama goes into the general election like Ford having held on to beat Reagan in 1976 -- i.e., from a weakened position. The 527s will glue Wright to Obama in the fall, and I just don't see how Obama gets free of it. Buy those McCain futures now . . .

"The 527s will glue Wright to Obama in the fall, and I just don't see how Obama gets free of it. Buy those McCain futures now . . ."

Of course, once we get back to talking about real issues and not sideshows, McCain will be saddled with a failing surge, an economic crisis, and explaining how a former POW now supports torture. A senior leader in the Senate will have a lot of explaining to do about policy and the Bush administration's failures will be hung around his neck. All the "independent streak" McCain is famous for will fade when he starts having to please the social conservatives, the neoCons, and the tax-hawks. None of them are going to be happy.

Not everyone feels that their purpose in life is to act as human approval or disapproval meters with all those who come their way.

Well said Rebeccat -- and then again later down in the combox.

Your two comments make mine moot, as everything's been said.

Of course, once we get back to talking about real issues and not sideshows, McCain will be saddled with a failing surge, an economic crisis, and explaining how a former POW now supports torture.

That's some of the farthest off-base political analysis I've ever heard.

-- McCain isn't going to lose because of the "failing surge". All you need to know about how the surge/Iraq issue plays out politically is that McCain loves to talk about it; both Obama and Clinton would rather talk about something else. Personally, I agree with you that Iraq has been a huge strategic disaster. But it's unlikely to work against McCain at the polls.

-- The economy is the big wildcard, and probably a net drag on McCain. But then again, how is McCain responsible for the credit crisis that has followed the bursting of the housing bubble? And what does either Clinton or Obama have to offer on the economy that passes the laugh test?

-- McCain certainly does not "support torture". Nobody other than Netroots lunatics thinks he does. And frankly, as an issue that actually impacts how people vote, nobody cares anyway.

-- To anyone who has followed American politics for the past decade, the notion that John McCain is some sort of Bush Clone or insincere panderer is laughable.

If these are forthcoming leftwing memes, then it's looking like a better November for the Republicans than anyone once thought possible.

Four differences: (1) private sin vs. public sin, (2) momentary impulse vs. deliberate act, (3) past vs. present, (4) reflections of era vs. no such excuse.

The speech was terrific, certainly the best speech on race this citizen has heard by an American politician; I'd like to hear him hammer these themes over the coming weeks in Pennsylvania. There is much truth in it, truth that can do some good.

On the other hand, Stanley Kurtz at NRO's Corner blog has a searing observation another possible impact of Obama's speech:

"Obama’s speech was thoughtful, powerful, and to many will be persuasive. But on behalf of what exactly has this persuasive power been deployed? We’re being asked to adopt an attitude of relative complacency toward a man who takes just about the most radical and profoundly troubling stance toward his own country that an American can take....

"Remember when we were hearing about the need to purge Michael Moore and the MoveOn crowd from the Democratic Party? Obama is the polar opposite of all that–and in a devilishly clever way. Rather than move the Democrats away from the Michael Moores or Jeremiah Wrights, Obama buys absolution for them from the rest of the country. No, Obama does not fully agree with Jeremiah Wright, but the Democratic Party under Obama will be complacent about its Michael Moore wing. That’s why the MoveOn types are so excited about Obama. There will be plenty of the most left-leaning appointees staffing the federal bureaucracy and set into judgeships under Obama, and all of it will be smoothed over by speeches about national healing and understanding pain. Under Obama, the Michael Moore-MoveOn wing, far from being purged, will be in the catbird seat, and all because they’ve found the perfect spokesman."

>>>
But the guy has really gotten to me...
Posted by: Derek Copold | March 18, 2008 2:43 PM
>>>

You don't say?

I'm going to have to think the content through some more, but I have two points to make now:

(1) As rhetoric, it was absolutely brilliant, one of the best speeches I've heard in my lifetime.

(2) Obama's policy prescriptions are standard liberal fare.

Rod, your name will be on my mind tonight in the third prostration during the St. Ephraim prayer [forgive me], but may Obama and Wright be on yours.

Reaganite, a bit of fact check for you: the Obama campaign asked the media to leave his grandmother alone at her request. Her desire is, IIRC, the only words she spoke that were quoted in the news report dealing with it.

As for the American electorate: they've happily run themselves up the flagpole, and flap in whichever direction the wind is blowing at the moment. Feh.

Daniel,

What did I really get out the speech? It was a brilliant update of the 1952 Checkers speech by Nixon. A master storyteller brilliantly propped up "nutty Uncle" and "grandma" as the two bookends (one black, and one white) of the "old racism." Gee, he seemed to imply, Pastor Wright and my white grandmother are two old bickering relatives rendered irrelevant by the passage of time. (His intricate narrative also included slams at Geraldine Ferraro, talk radio and condescending portrayals of the 1st and 2nd generation white ethnic "Reagan Democrats -- all of which was constructed to somehow justify Wright's rhetoric and anger and get the focus off the Obama/Wright connection).

Too bad that we have no idea what his grandmother ever ACTUALLY said. And how sweet of her ambitious grandson to "use her" as a personal family symbol of white prejudice!

What did we get in the end? An artful evasion of the central question of the past week: Why did you, the wannabe "post-racial" unifier of the country, embrace this man so long and so fruitfully? If Oprah Winfrey could see through Pastor Wright (and have the guts to leave his church years ago), why couldn't you?

Jesse-

I don't think much of a person like Wright.As I've laid out, he honored a criminal in Farakhan who was an unindicted co-conspirator in at least 2 murders, those of Malcolm X and NYPD Patrolman Philip Cardillo. I'm not sure what else you need to know about Wright, but when you add in his statements, no respectable pol should have anything to do with him.

What ever I think of Obama, it would seem that his granparents were exemplary people who had a wild child of a daughter who left them to raise her kids. And by all accounts, Obama's grandparents, who happened to be white, did their best to raise him and his sister.

His grandma apparently had some weak and nasty moments, but private moments, in her home. Those moments must've been awfully wounding and hurtful for Obama, but they were not public statements. From the little we can glean about the woman, I'm sure she wish she could take them back and may have even begged forgiveness of her grandson, and that she loves her grandson. Obama today held those private failings up as comparable to Wright's public, notorious and open career of bigotry and hatred from the pulpit of an 8000+ congregation in a major American city.

I don't play the "I'nm gonna report you to the front ofice" game for personal attacks. But what's truly moronic is a man holding up his 85-year old grandma for ridicule for her private personal foibles when he's caught in a tight spot hanging with and supporting a public bigot.

(His intricate narrative also included slams at Geraldine Ferraro

I took his actual remarks to be a defense of Ferraro, as well as a defense of Hillary - i.e., he defused/dismissed the charges of racism that were leveled at Ferraro and Clinton:

"We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias."

"We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies."

I hang out on a couple of Republican-oriented boards (comprised mostly of white people) and the majority of folks there are really upset about Obama's pastor. These are the same people who were NOT upset over the Ron Paul newsletters.

I also hang out on a couple of black-oriented boards and the majority of folks there are not upset about Obama's pastor but they WERE upset over the Ron Paul newsletters.

I don't think you can be upset about one and not the other and not admit in your heart of hearts that you are being hypocritical in some way.

I think many of us hold a double standard when it comes to this kind of thing depending on whether it's our ethnicity that's being spewed about. I put myself in this sorry group. Thank God for the blood of the Lamb.

I think this whole thing will hurt Obama in the long run.

And isn't that fact itself a serious problem, an indication that Wright's nutty views are rather widespread?

Ain't that the truth, Vic? When people tell me "A lot of blacks feel this way", it's almost as if I'm supposed to answer, "Oh, then I guess it's okay."

Here's a fascinating bit of commentary from a Slate blogger:

http://www.theroot.com/id/45336

"If the racialized anti-Obama campaign is effective, however, and one news source suggests that it already has been (while increasing the net likelihood that blacks will vote for Obama, 56 percent of voters are reported to say that his ties to Wright decrease their likelihood of voting for the Senator), it appears that only a candidate that is politically whiter than Senator Obama can win high national office.

"What do I mean by politically whiter? Not that it would take a more conservative politician, but that it would take a politician who either has no ties or has renounced all ties with grassroots and activist members of the black community who hold conventional black political attitudes.

"We all know (or are) members of the black community who are black nationalists, former black socialists, black feminists, liberals way to the left of most Democrats, and even the occasional black conservative. The great majority of us are exceedingly unlikely to denounce these family members, friends, and congregants. We may not talk about them in mixed company (as Obama hinted in his speech) because we know what type of ugliness will follow, but neither will we cut them loose."

Well said, I think. It's not OK that attitudes like those of Wright are so widespread in the black community, but what exactly are we to do about it?

Bless,
Doug

And isn't that fact itself a serious problem, an indication that Wright's nutty views are rather widespread?

Ain't that the truth, Vic? When people tell me "A lot of blacks feel this way", it's almost as if I'm supposed to answer, "Oh, then I guess it's okay."

Or it might mean that maybe you have something to learn if you took the time to listen, rather than reflexively dismissing what you don't want to hear.

Bugg,

I don't read it the same way you do. Yes, he was in a sense equating Ferraro with Wright, but in a larger sense I think he was saying that both were being wrongly caricatured.

Bugg:

"Does anyone really buy this argument?"

I'm thinking the bigger question is whether anyone buys your analysis. I think most people who read the speech or listened to it understood the way he was talking about his grandmother and Ferraro. Yours is a much more tortured analysis.

Who does, in your mind? Did Bush? Does McCain? Romney? Huckabee?

None of those, of course. Perhaps you have written someone off prematurely?

Clinton?

I think most people who read the speech or listened to it understood the way he was talking about his grandmother and Ferraro.

Posted by: Daniel | March 18, 2008 4:54 PM

And you know that how?

I understand that Marxist Left debating technique is to use emotions and only emotions.

But seriously, Comrade Daniel, why not have a fact -- even a false one -- and/or reference once in a while?

Well said, I think. It's not OK that attitudes like those of Wright are so widespread in the black community, but what exactly are we to do about it?

For now, rudely terminating the political aspirations of a certain politician who supported Wright for the past twenty years.

Derek, You strike me as a Gemini .... Your lucky number today is 66, and invigorating colors include chartreuse and lilac.

But to pick up on the whole "throw grandma under the bus" thing, for the past few weeks I keep coming back to this idea -- an idea that I can't seem to shake off -- that in Obama's America the only role we (unreconstructed) white folks have to play is the part of the Dunhams (his white grandparents). Go to work, pay taxes, sit there quietly when we're being lectured on how benighted we are, and raise our multicultural grandchildren for our daughter who is off making the world a better place.

I will be the first to admit that it is irrational, but they're the only people in his family that I can identify with. And on a deeper level, I wonder if this what puts off much of white America.

"In Christ there is no East or West,
in him no South or North,
but one great fellowship of love
throughout the whole wide earth.

In him shall true hearts everywhere
their high communion find,
his service is the golden cord
close-binding all mankind.

Join hands, disciples of the faith,
whate'er your race may be!
Who serves my Father as a son
is surely kin to me.

In Christ now meet both East and West,
in him meet South and North,
all Christly souls are one in him,
throughout the whole wide earth."

Just sayin'

Bugg and others,

I appreciate your discomfort with the Grandmother anecdote. I do. And if he had told that story as merely another example of contemporary racism or his experience with it, I would agree wholeheartedly with your assessment. But this anecdote wasn't just one of many data points he was drawing on for his speech. In many ways, it was THE DEFINING data point - the story that would allow him to make sense of his relationship with Wright (the man), despite his enormous disagreement with Wright's words. I think the comparison between Wright and his grandmother has been somewhat misunderstood. It wasn't just: these were two people, white and black, who he loved and embraced despite their prejudices. It was also: these were two people WHO LOVED AND EMBRACED HIM, while at the same time painfully denying a core part of his identity. In some weird way, the two relationships probably reinforced each other: each spoke to one half of who he was, but never fully to both.

The Grandmother anecdote brought tears to my eyes, and I'm not normally one for mistiness. In part, it was because I simply cannot imagine what it must feel like to have someone who loves me so dearly say, if I saw your father or your father's father walking across the street, it would scare me. In part because I'm sure there is nothing in the world Barack Obama wanted to keep from the world more than that story (does anyone really doubt he loves and wants to protect his own grandmother?), and the anguish he must have felt reciting it, knowing full well how people would hear it, what they would think about this woman who raised him and gave him everything. And yet, it was the truth, and as much a part of the American story as anything.

I bet in a blind sociology experiment if you took TUCC's beliefs, changed them to a white context, you would find most people would describe them as racist and hateful.

Possibly. I don't live under the delusion that we live in a color-blind society. I realize Black and White people live in parallel--but not identical--worlds. I realize that someone with my identical life experience--but was Black--would have a completely different outlook than I do because while our resumes would be the same, our lives would be different because of the experience of race.

Women don't clutch their purses when I enter an elevator. People don't follow me around in stores--even when I'm wearing my professional suit--because they think I am going to rob the place. People don't assume that because I am tall and have big shoulders, I once played football. I don't get pulled over by the police because I'm driving in a nice neighborhood. No one assumes I am the assistant when I walk into a meeting. I'm not asked to speak for my entire race. My relatives weren't brought here as slaves.

I can get a cab. I can walk into any public space--a hotel, a restaurant, a store, an office building--and no one is going to ask me for ID or why I am there. I can be assured my daughters don't have to looks for special places to get their hair styled.

So comments by a white man and a comments by a Black man are different, whether that makes people comfortable or not. Rev. Wright has a right to feel angry about how he has been treated in this society by white people, and sometimes that comes out in rage. If Rev. Wright were white, he would not have that right because his experience as a white man in the U.S. doesn't engender the same kind of rage at Black people; nothings justifies it.

Sorry, Daniel, the white guilt account has run empty. You can't use nervous women and frightened cabbies as hostages to get your candidate out of this mess. For twenty years Obama sat in this guy's church, buddied up to him, appointed him his mentor and did nothing, NADA, that we know of to influence or change Wright or his views. Obama went there for the street cred. Now that that cred is endangering his post-racial image, Obama's throwing out every excuse, betting (correctly) that Obamatons like you will run interference for him.

>> "Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many."

Amen, Brother.

I sure would like to see folks debate the relative merits of this line from the speech instead of arguing over whether or not Grandma got thrown under the bus.

You can't use nervous women and frightened cabbies as hostages to get your candidate out of this mess.

I wasn't talking about Obama, Derek. I was talking about why inflammatory comments made by black people and white people are different because of the context.

I wasn't talking about Obama, Derek.

Yes, you were, Daniel. Don't fall into your candidate's habits. You were answering a supposition about a white presidential candidate that pointed to the obvious double standard. Now, perhaps we can allow some leeway for a state senator, but that won't work at the POTUS level.

I do give Obama credit for engendering a conversation about race that we need to have.

Because he was just rarin' to give this speech, eh?

I think you should credit the good Reverend Wright, not his spiritual child.

Pyrrho: "Rev. Wright could have expressed his own frustrations and depair from the pulpit, expressed the frustrations and despair of his congregation, and yet not succumbed to premeditated hate-mongery."

Well, but isn't part of this debate the difficulty in knowing just where that line is? At least here you and Obama seem to agree that there is a line somewhere we shouldn't cross, and you agree that Wright crossed it.

I don't see why this should somehow disqualify Obama, though.

Bless,
Doug

Well, Doug, the issue is what Obama has and has not done in response to Wright's crossing the line -- and why he acted and chose not to act in certain manners.

Did Obama privately chide Wright? Not so far as we know. He obviously didn't leave TUCC. Why? Political expediency while he was a state senator? Personal loyalties? Michelle really liked it there? He actually agreed with Wright, notwithstanding what he says now? There are things we don't know, which this speech didn't fully answer. The real answers may -- or may not -- disqualify Obama IMO.

"It occurs to me that the reason why Obama prefers to give a speech rather than answer a lot of questions is that there is more of a chance of slipping and revealing his true opinions during a press conference."

I know it was a long time ago, but you may recall that on Friday he was interviewed on 3 separate networks on the Wright controversy (in addition to spending hours being grilled by Chicago papers on the Rezko stuff). The "interview" with Fox's Major Garrett (what a name!) was one of the most prosecutorial I've ever seen when it comes to a major American political figure.

Also, at the risk of defending a man "everyone knows" is an indefensible monster, I'm curious: what exactly did he say that was racist. I'm happy to grant crazy, divisive, or even "anti-american". But racist? Did he say that whites were inherently evil? That they were inherently dumb, or devious, or cruel? No. He said white society was racist. And he said God D--M America. But white America is not the same as white people; nor is white society. What he said may be ignorant and, to some ears, hurtful. But I don't think it fits under any reasonable definition of racist.

To see the distinction, just consider another quote from one of Wright's controversial sermons:
"God's good news is for ALL people. God's good news is for ALL people".

Conspiracy theories and anti-American rants are bad enough. I'm not sure why we need to add racism to the charges.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvcmqnju9PM&eurl=http://thinkonthesethings.wordpress.com/

"I was talking about why inflammatory comments made by black people and white people are different because of the context."

Michael Vick had the same problem with running his dog fighting ring Bad Newz Kennels. White people didn't understand the context.

"I don't play the "I'nm gonna report you to the front ofice" game for personal attacks. But what's truly moronic is a man holding up his 85-year old grandma for ridicule for her private personal foibles when he's caught in a tight spot hanging with and supporting a public bigot."

Well, you know, I don't think he said his grandma's comments were equivalent in degree to Wright's remarks. He was basically saying "We're all in this together and we all have had moments where our judgment has been faulty." Getting bogged down in who-did-what-worse distracts from the basic point that racism and inflammatory words/actions cut multiple ways.

Further, and more importantly, private bigotry is no less excusable than public bigotry. As a white male from the South, I've heard many bigoted remarks in my life. Racism is racism, whether it's from the privacy of your living room or main street. Some of these unfortunate remarks were from friends; a few from family members. I'm an outspoken advocate of racial equality and social justice in both my private and professional life (college educator). I am also unabashed admirer of Barack Obama. Am I therefore a hypocrite for maintaining relationships with people in my life that occasionally disappointed with their ugly words and opinions?

If all of us had to completely distance ourselves from every friend or relative that has said or done something regrettable out of ignorance and/or anger we would likely all be pretty lonely. Obama was logical, candid, and fair in his words today. He denounced what needed to be denounced, and do you really think he approves of Wright's rhetoric? Let's be serious. If you have never confronted your pastor/priest/rabbi over something he/she said, then a) you are blessed with better clergy than 90% of us or b) you expect more from Obama than yourself.

If you don't like Obama's policy postions, fine. I respect that. It strikes me as ignorant and/or politically motivated to attack him on this topic. Especially after a landmark oration worthy of Lincoln.

"This speech was a 'it's all whitey's fault' speech."

I find it somewhat saddening that one could listen to this speech and reach that conclusion. That's just a ridiculous claim on your part.

Pyrrho: "I think the contra-Obama argument here has two components:

"(1) The race-based double standard: Any white politician with a spiritual mentor displaying such open hostility towards the country and the majority of its population (no matter how understandable or how extemporaneously) would be finished. Maybe we're wrong in thinking this way, but many (maybe most) of us think it."

No, I think it's absolutely true that this double standard exists. I don't think that means Obama should be the recipient of decades of pent-up non-black frustration with the differences.

(2) The judgement issue: We're told (by Andrew Sullivan, et al.) that Obama may not have much government experience, but he sure does show good judgement. Leaving aside the question "Just how are we to know if he has good political judgement if he hasn't been put in a position where he has had a chance to exercise it?", the whole Rev. Wright affair shows an astounding lack of it.

Another valid point. I think that the kinds of discussions we're having are the kinds that are necessary to be able to reach a conclusion about what exactly this says about Obama's judgment. As I said on another thread, I wouldn't have to be placed in the position of repudiating the man who stood in the pulpit when I encountered genuine Christian faith for the first time in my life.

Bless,
Doug

I am very disappointed reading a lot of what is written in this thread's com boxes. Because it has less to do with what Obama said in his speech, and more to do with readers' personal issue of unresolved racial naiveté and/or resentment.

To really ‘get’ what this man said today is to open one's mind and intellectual heart. And it helps in absorbing the message(s) to have some knowledge of the African American churches and ministry culture.

I grew up going in part to black Pentecostal churches. As an adult, I have regularly attended same. The proof that white America is clueless to the context of African-American thought regarding their historical place vs. the Anglo, etc. is highlighted by this Wright/Obama flare of 'mock outrage'. That plus Wright's words being excerpts make this NOT so much a pertinent point to challenge as it is a chance (at last) for non-black America to admit their current queasy erstwhile buyer's remorse at jumping on the red-hot-but-not-white Obama bandwagon so quickly.

In other words, they were not allowed to be concerned about an African American president potential up until now. Now they have the opportunity to go, “Wait a minute. This makes me uneasy. Maybe. Potentially.”.

My suggestions as the white guy who ‘gets’ the black cultures (far better than the latter 'gets' the former), is:
1) Get out there and attend alternative churches. Pentecostal, Jewish, Catholic, Orthodox
2) Recognize that Rev. Wright is of a totally different era/generation than Obama and is indicative of those whose childhoods were segregated and abusive rather than post Civil Rights era. Obama came of age long after the ‘whites only’ water fountains were the law of the land. That is a HUGE generational gulf. For instance: The black teens I council are completely disengaged from the notion that they ever were relegated to sanctioned lives with few options and doomed futures.

3) Obama is ‘African American’ in the anecdotal sense rather than historical ‘slavery in American past’ sense. His African roots trace to his Kenyan father’s arrival as a student here in what, 1957, 8,9? That alone is a massive difference in cultural reference. Before we ever get to the point that he was raised by his white mother and later grandparents.

Too, unless you grasp the totality of an orator’s message, taking the clip bites and replaying them is neither fair nor helpful. It’s Cliff Notes by definition; People mag vs. The Atlantic. Meanwhile, let’s raise the larger question (as I see it) about why and how all these preachers …black and white….freely discuss not only politics but actual politicians from the pulpit…with the message being about who to vote for or demonize/marginalize as Wright did Hillary…and as I see and hear on Daystar and 700 Club, etc……………. when that is a tax-proof church property ministry, etc., etc., etc. Watching those TV shows or attending many a church… the line between being at a political candidate/party rally and being in church or seeing religious programming is seldom drawn. How is that legal and allowed and retain tax exempt status?

I'm not even going to bother reading the com boxes, but I just wanted to pass on this commentary about Obama's speech by Michael Dawson on why he thinks the speech was too late:

"It was too little because even though he strongly and correctly argued that today's racial disadvantage is based on the white supremacy of the past, we know that many, many whites do not connect the black situation today to either the injustices of the past or the present."

Everything I have seen here proves this out. He goes on:

" If the racialized anti-Obama campaign is effective, however, and one news source suggests that it already has been (while increasing the net likelihood that blacks will vote for Obama, 56 percent of voters are reported to say that his ties to Wright decrease their likelihood of voting for the Senator), it appears that only a candidate that is politically whiter than Senator Obama can win high national office.

What do I mean by politically whiter? Not that it would take a more conservative politician, but that it would take a politician who either has no ties or has renounced all ties with grassroots and activist members of the black community who hold conventional black political attitudes.

We all know (or are) members of the black community who are black nationalists, former black socialists, black feminists, liberals way to the left of most Democrats, and even the occasional black conservative. The great majority of us are exceedingly unlikely to denounce these family members, friends, and congregants. We may not talk about them in mixed company (as Obama hinted in his speech) because we know what type of ugliness will follow, but neither will we cut them loose.

Why?

It is not only because often when we look at them we see ourselves, or our former selves, but because we understand the deep, continuing effects of structural black disadvantage; because we have personally experienced slights that remain a quotidian part of the black experience.

If it really is too little, too late, the consequences of this reality are what one might expect. We can expect a black community even more disillusioned with American politics than it was a year ago, and a nation that is continuing down a reckless course toward racial disaster."

As I read that last line (which I believe is true) and look at how the conversations here have gone, it makes me ill to think Obama could be brought down not by his liberalism, support for infanticide, potential dirty dealings or any of the other legitimate things which could/should bring down any white politician. Instead, he would have been brought down for being a man who carries with him the weight of what it means to be a black man in america and of living and associating in the community of people who are heirs to the poisoned legacy of race in this country. It really could not be a worse end to his candidacy for this country, if it is the end of his candidacy. I know that no one here will feel anything other than completely justified in taking the positions they have taken. I doubt our children will thank us for how this moment is playing out when they are dealing with these issues 50 years from now.

Perhaps my comment was a little too generalized, but I think the point is valid. If you can show me, where in this speech he asked blacks to take a look in the mirror and to take responsibility, I will be happy to admit my error. Show me, even though I am not from Missouri. Blacks can be successful in this country, and indeed many are. Unfortunately, many in the black community (not all) would rather cling to their bitterness and anger than find a way out and a way up. This speech did a lot more of the former, than the latter in my view. - Posted by: Stevereno | March 18, 2008 9:29 PM

How about this:

"For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny."

Fair enough Eric W. Even the line you point out has this little nugget:
"...they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny."
Once again, as throughout the speech, it is framed in discrimination; it is about black victimhood. Senator Obama greatly soft pedalled this very small portion (one throw away line that still managed to incorporate discrimination) compared to DNC convention speech, which was great on the issue of responsibility compared to this one. The whole context of the speech, the very fabric of it from the Constitution comments through the end was that blacks have gotten a raw deal. I don't deny any of it, but I strongly question how making this argument in this way helps us move on. White America, and all taxpayers should be doing a lot more to help families, getting them together and keeping them together. We need incentives and programs to counter the generational damage done by the perverse incentives of the welfare programs. We don't need more your problems are "their" fault rhetoric. It helps no one, except perhaps the candidate.

Discrimination=back victimhood? So when I walked into a restaurant with my black junior officer, three months back from Desert Storm, and was told "we dont serve his kind here" he was facing victimhood. Ok Ill go find the dictionary but he says blacks should try to control their own destiny. A conservative ideal IMO.

We need incentives and programs to counter the generational damage done by the perverse incentives of the welfare programs.

Obama specifically noted that welfare programs have contributed to the problems.

Steve

Several times these past few days, I've been fascinating to hear reactions which confound me....things I hear that others seem to hear in the exact opposite way.

Some apparently are taking offense to what Obama says about his maternal grandmother, a white woman originally from Kansas. Some say he threw her under the bus.

I can only refer you to his book "Dreams of My Father," and encourage you to read what he says about his white grandmother there. Like everyone else in his life, including himself, Obama is remarkably loving and clearheaded in his assessment of her. In fact, that ability is, I believe, one of his more remarkable traits.

I haven't heard anyone comment on the fact that he wrote this speech...as he wrote his books...as he writes a lot of his own stuff.

That impresses me deeply too.

no, meh, it's insanity and it has cost my family dearly. I would like to ask you, as a propogator of this notion of black intellectual inferiority to pony up for your portion of what this belief has cost my family personally over the last couple of year. I take cash, checks or visa.

You can't preach what you preach (which is objectively based on illogical conclusions anyways) without causing what we've gone through. That's just the way it is, so if you want to keep preaching what you preach and causing what we've had to live with then I will continue to expect you and others doing what you're doing to pony up for the damage caused.

Or it might mean that maybe you have something to learn if you took the time to listen, rather than reflexively dismissing what you don't want to hear.

Bru-THUR. The liberal plays the "open-minded" card.

This is exactly what Derek ... a lot of people think something and so therefore that makes it OK.

Look ... I freely admit I have a closed mind about a lot of subjects -- 9-11 Trutherism, Holocaust Denial, Young-Earth Creationism. It's not that I somehow "don't want to hear it." It's that I think they're a load of shit, on the basis of having "listened" in the past, and I know they are not worth my time or anyone else's, even for the sake of rebutting. Do you think there are any ideas that fit in that category, or are you too open-minded for that? I don't care how many black people think the government invented AIDS or is shipping drugs into South-Central or OJ Simpson is innocent. To the extent that a lot of black people or any other definable group think that, then that is indicative of severe problems in that group's public sphere and/or its leadership class.

On a spiritual level -- which is how anyone should evaluate a church, right? -- why join and stay at a church where "the root of bitterness" (Heb. 12:15) seems to have taken such a strong hold in the senior pastor's heart? The key to how one is to "be angry, and sin not," is to make sure you don't embrace and feed and sustain the life of the anger. Don't let the sun go down on it. But Wright seems to rejoice about America's chickens coming home to roost on 9/11 and calls Rice "Condamnesia."

I go to church with some bitter people, who nurse grievances from 20+ years ago about what the head minister of the church they left did to them. (I've fought this sentiment at every turn, and some of these folks don't speak to me as a result.) But I've never heard this bitterness from the pulpit. If I had, I would have been out of there in a New York minute -- even though there are very few churches that have the particular combination of theology and form of worship that I prefer.

The point meh is trying to make is that the goal of seeing an equal proportion of every race and ethnic group in every field of endeavor is absurd. Jews tend to have a higher IQ as a group than the general population. That's why you see a lot of Jews in a lot of academic fields out of proportion to their numbers.

This has nothing to do with devaluing the worth of any individual or group of people. It does have to do with recognizing that groups are groups because they have different traits and as such you can expect them to do better in different areas. Once you recognize that, then it's easier to try and determine how to best handle that as a society instead of jousting at the windmills of equal results.

Until those who believe IQ justifies discrimination are willing to sit at the back of the bus on which East Asians sit in front, I'm not about to take them seriously.

Have fun jousting at straw men Marian. Neither meh nor myself said it justified discrimination. It does mean that all groups aren't going to perform well in the same field. How many white running backs are there in the NFL? Is the NFL discriminating because more than 12% of the running backs in the NFL are black? Really, how can we have a decent discussion when facts are ignored because they are inconvenient?

There is no substantive proof that any race is smarter than any other race. Race itself is a ridiculous, socially-constructed concept. Would anyone seriously argue tall people are smarter than short people? That blue-eyed people are smarter than brown-eyed people? The color of one's skin, or one's ethnicity has NO bearing on how smart you are. This is a cultural issue; an access-to-the-system issue. Statements that one race is clearly smarter than another are Adolf Hitler territory. It is KKK territory. Such remarks are shameful and any thinking person should reject them outright. Some people are smarter than others, sure. But that's not a racial difference. That's a human difference.

For a perspective a bit different that my own, but still more educated than the propaganda being espoused in this thread:

http://www.gladwell.com/2007/2007_12_17_c_iq.html

do you know the first thing about the context in which Wright's statements were made...

There is no context which can justify some of this stuff, and if a white person were to be saying the equivalent things about blacks, nobody, least of all those defending Wright, would even be looking for "the context."

But this is what matters:
I have no doubt that the vast majority of commentators on this and other blogs know only what they have been spoonfed by FOX. ...

If you have never stepped foot in a black church, if you have never really had an honest conversation with an African American person about race ...

I have no interest in continuing.

I note that these assumptions are absolutely typical of liberals and other racialists ... the presupposition of their own superior knowledge, understanding or virtue whilst among a group of strangers.

"There is no substantive proof that any race is smarter than any other race. Race itself is a ridiculous, socially-constructed concept. Would anyone seriously argue tall people are smarter than short people? That blue-eyed people are smarter than brown-eyed people? The color of one's skin, or one's ethnicity has NO bearing on how smart you are."

Ricky, you are misinformed. For an educated perspective, as opposed to propaganda, please read:

http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/10/james-watson-tells-inconvenient-truth_296.php

;-) So, Marian, does that mean I can bank on my being 76 inches tall?

Here's a statistics clue-by-four for the audience-at-large: demographic comparisons are valid so long as the analyst is (painfully, if I have my way) aware of the limitations of the collected data.

Just as an example: the forward hump of the bell curve for Asians is measured for the geographic United States or it fails as a valid comparison point for other demographic groups in the US. Lacking an explicit dataset for all Asians, one can only validly look at IQ data for the US, not for all Asians.

The fact the you had 3 responses to your blog says enough.

What exactly are you afraid of? Are you apart of Fox News?

Your heart beats faster when faced with the truth doesn't it? Rod, open and expanded your CIRCLE, it sounds like it is lacking diversity.