Charles Murray has written a longer piece about the Obama speech. It is definitely worth reading:
I understand how naïve it is to read a presidential candidate’s speech as if it were anything except political positioning, but that leads me to my final point: It’s about time that people who disagree with Obama’s politics recognize that he is genuinely different. When he talks, he sounds like a real human being, not a politician. I’m not referring to the speechifying, but to the way he comes across all the time. We’ve had lots of charming politicians. I cannot think of another politician in my lifetime who conveys so much sense of talking to individuals, and talking to them in ways that he sees as one side of a dialogue. Conservatives who insist that he’s nothing but an even slicker Bill Clinton are missing a reality about him, and at their peril.I can’t vote for him. He is an honest-to-God lefty. He apparently has learned nothing from the 1960s. His Supreme Court nominees would be disasters. And maybe he is too green and has lived too much of his adult life in a politically correct bubble. But the other day he talked about race in ways that no other major politician has tried to do, with a level of honesty that no other major politician has dared, and with more insight than any other major politician possesses. Not bad.
Last week I wrote that it was one of the finest political speeches in memory. This week I affirm that. Go back, listen to it again. Read it again. But this time do it with all of things that you have heard from friends and family members since the speech... do it while the memory of your conversations about race are still fresh in your mind. I think that if you do that you will see the genius of the speech all over again.
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Brian, I'll try to answer: There exists a number of people including me who think Barack Obama is a good candidate, that Bush is a catastrophe, that the Republican party isn't worth rescuing but also that government is not an effective instrument for solving most problems, that regulations typically do more harm than good and that trade is good, necessary and has to be part of any national strategy for prosperity from now on as does comprehensive immigration reform. I like Obama very much but I am concerned that we know so little about his plans and that he seems so comfortable with the idea that government can fix a big portion of people's concerns. I won't repeat Murray that "I can't vote for him," in fact I did in the primary but I expect that I'll vote for John McCain in November. I am keeping an open mind but I feel certain that the last 8 years have not been a test of conservative leadership and that the previous 8 were not a test of liberalism. What I take away from the last 16 years is that centrism coupled with competence works a lot better than phony faith-based foolishness.
WATCH one abortion and think of Obama as the unlucky unborn victim of the D & C. Or, better yet, watch a porn flick and put the face of your mother on whatever woman is being done to in the porn flick. Then, think how many "Hollywood" types have literally backed Obama with money, with voice and with vote (with conviction). Liberals don't look so good in the light.
When I think of all the 'conservatives' who have paid for those abortions (abortions are more likely to occur in red states than blue, and in 'conservative' religious households than liberal) and the number of church going men with an addiction to porn...Conservatives don't look so good in the light either.
Talking the talk and walking the walk are two different things.
WATCH one abortion....
Why not think of Adolf Hitler or Charles Manson or Mohammed Atta? You guys are so selective.
Donny, I agree completely. It's better to watch a porn flick than an abortion.
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