Bracing For The Big Speech

Andrew Sullivan is all excited in anticipation of the Obama speech on race, so Team Protein smites him.  As does Mark Steyn.

But I can't resist taking my own shot at Sully's lead:

Today will be a crucial day. It will be a day when we will discover if America’s racial environment - and the emotions and feelings and anger and fears that it entails - can allow for a black man - with all that entails - to become president.

Stop, I'm begging you.  If Colin Powell were running on his national security credentials, would we be having this conversation about his hate-filled minister?  Of course not - we'd be talking (OK, groaning) about his UN presentation on Saddam's WMDs.

But since Obama is virtually unknown to most of us, and since he is running as an emblem of racial reconciliation, his long and close association with Wright is a legitimate issue.

What do I hope to hear in this speech?  Answers to a couple of questions:

1.  When Obama attempted to quell this on Saturday he warned us that "over the last several weeks that the forces of division have started to raise their ugly heads again."

Does Obama consider his own minister to be one of those "forces of division"?  How can he rationalize his twenty year association with this man, and how does he explain his minister's sermons to his daughters?

2.  Again, last Saturday Obama told us that "[Our country has] got a lot of pent-up anger and bitterness and misunderstanding. But what I continue to believe in is that this country wants to move beyond these kinds of divisions."

Does Obama really believe that Wright wants to move past these divisions?  Has Obama had much success moving Wright past his anger?  Or if not, is it only white people that are supposed to give up their anger and end their divisiveness?

ON MSNBC:  Brutal - MSNBC is presenting black ministers who insist that Wright is way out of the mainstream, and that most black churches preach a more traditional Christian message of love.  Ooops.

SWIFTBOAT WILLIE:  Bill Kristol is telling me that some Obama supporters are realizing this is a problem for Obama.  A problem?  It's Willie Horton driving a Swiftboat!

Comments

[vnjagvet]

To measure OHB's effectiveness, see/listen to "the speech" through the eyes of hispanic and white Catholic blue collar voters.

It will be successful only if it is persuasive to them.

[Jane]

He sounds off. But maybe he will discover his lilt ala Reverend Wright.

[MayBee]

He should explain why it is in this nation only that his story is possible.
I believe that, but to skim over it is to skim over Wright's contrary teachings.
Although, only in America is Wright's story possible.

[Jane]

Hell I think it's a flop. It's hard to listen to. I'm certainly not moved.

[MayBee]

I just heard the audience for the first time.
This is dreadful, really. Maybe I'm too racist to be moved by it.

[boris]

Other than the socialdemocrat boilerplate the only real substance is admitting that he did hear some of those bad things on occasion.

[Sue]

I think I am too, Maybee. It is what I said earlier. His speech is to blame us for Wright being a racist. I don't know why anyone, including me, is surprised. That is the progressive way. Everyone is to blame but the person who should be blamed.

[GMax]

Dont get your hopes up. It may be lilting in tones with dramatic pauses and soaring rhetoric but it is aimed at liberals, the least discerning beings on this planet. It will be the 2008 version of "Can we all just get along". Nothing more. And we already have a lot of the media who like the speech, despite the fact they have not even heard it yet.

But this wound in deep and will fester, and in the general election it will not be so easily dismissed.

[PrestoPundit]

Obama says the anger of the older generation of blacks helps keep us dividied. But note well -- he's continuing to act to make sure that anger gets passed along to the next generation, even to his own children, buy putting them in the pews of Rev. Wright's church, by bankrolling this anti-white minister's church, by advocating _expanding_ the teaching of grievance history and victimology in the schools.

[Jane]

Frankly it's all sorts of disappointing.

[MayBee]

Yeah, I just popped over to Kos and the commenters there are crying.

They also think he is so brave to speak about race in America, because nobody wants to talk about race in America. Which is bunk. We beat the topic of racism to death in America.

[Jane]

Ahhh now the rub - it's all the white's fault.

[kim]

No MayBee, I think you are too beyond racism to get it. Obama sounds anachronistic. Wright stuck him in a time capsule for twenty years, while the rest of us went on.

I agree with Sue, this is a speech for the progs. Kos will love it. Pennsylvania won't.

Oh God, not Hillary again.
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[MayBee]

It's John McCain's fault (regardless of his policies?).

[vnjagvet]

But, is is playing well with white guys?

My impression is no.

It is cooly intellectual (and put together quite well). But "down to earth"?

Not so much.

[kim]

Yeah, you do get it, MayBee; we've beaten racism to death in this country. It's a lifeless horse, but Obama expects just a few more miles from it.

Speaking of zombies, how about those Clintons? The Dawn of the Living Dems.
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[MayBee]

I'm having a hard time understanding the Ashley story.

[kim]

He's really just a racebaiter, newly packaged for the new Century. Get a life, Obama. Make a difference in Congress and come back in twenty years when you've gotten over yourself, and your upside down self identity. Same for you, Hillary.

Bradley for President. Maybe they'll pick Gore instead. Kerry is coveting his little email list. My precious.
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[Ann]

A word that comes to my mind is clever. The left will love it.

[MTT]

Like I said, Home Run.

Really.

The Great Uniter is upon us.

Rejoice!

See how easy it is?

Don't be a hater.

Believe.

Just sayin'.

[kim]

Ashley is a fairy tale, even if true. Starving downtrodden, evil corporation denying health care, old wise man, young inspired. Can't you see the trail of crumbs? This guy pushes fear buttons, sic semper tyrannis.
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[kim]

I'll tell you what I hate, MTT, and that is demagoguery, and Obama is an expert.

It is helpful to remember that the radical left is all about hate, and that is his natural constituency. The mass of Americans do not believe they hate, and they don't, and they can't be convinced that they do. Ergo, Obama has marginalized himself. He sits in the Church of Hate, week after week after week, and he hasn't the gumption to get up and holler, 'No, it ain't so'.
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[Patrick R. Sullivan]

He's trying to finesse it. Say just enough to distance himself from Wright, but (wink, wink,)we can all understand how Wright could feel the way he does.

The major problem I see is that the REAL OLD TIMERS, such as MLK jr. didn't talk like Wright.

[MTT]

Kim,

It is not only the radical Left that hates.

Dr. Dean, Chariman of the DNC

"I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for."

'Nuff said.

[Ann]

Sally Quinn loved it!! As I said, he is clever. He made them all feel guilty, again.

[vnjagvet]

But you have to admit, Kim, that the guy has talent.

He did not wilt or dodge.

Despite his youth and inexperience, he can not to be taken lightly.

I thought the money part was the gesture to the European American immigrants who had nothing to do with slavery, worked their asses off and are often victims of AA when they had nothing to do with the reasons for it. He recognized what he had to recognize.

I suspect this will be a talking point he will deliver more than once in Pennsylvania.

[vnjagvet]

"can not be taken lightly"

[kim]

You have a point PRS. MLK challenged the downtrodden to pull themselves up; Obama is still just blaming whitey, or the whitey equivalent, corporations.
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[jimmyk]

When Sully refers to Pat Robertson as one "who chooses to demonize minorities in the name of Jesus," does anyone know what he's referring to? Robertson has said some silly stuff, but I don't recall anything derogatory toward blacks. Or is Sully just using "minorities" for "gay people", even in a discussion about race?

[kim]

Yes, v, that was clever, but in the end also tone deaf. Those immigrant descendants, whose ancestors came post bellum, have worked to get beyond the guilt they've assumed from resentment about affirmative action. Too many of them have worked for too long with capable blacks who also are beyond Obama's strain of racism.

I maintain Obama sounds anachronistic. This stuff would've worked better thirty years ago. He's speaking now to the progressive left who are actually regressive and wish we were stuck in the seventies.

I predict he'll be abandoned by the young. Where he is is not where they are. Of course, they don't vote yet, so what does it matter.
============================

[M. Simon]

Obama is not coming back in 20 years. Carol Mosely Braun II.

[KMH]

Obama is not "blaming whitey". He is talking about the very REAL racial issues in America that people like to pretend don't exist. We all play a part. Every race has some issues and prejudices against other races (especially older Americans who grew up during the 50s and 60s) and we are in a transition period trying to make things better. He spoke about this in reference to Rev. Wright and his white grandmother. Why are people here saying he is a racist? I think it would be difficult to be racist against white people when you are 1/2 white!

[DebinNC]

From the speech:
"Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students."

What is the remedy for segregated schools, other than busing suburban whites in or inner city blacks out? Odd thing for someone seeking more white votes to say imo.

[Forbes]

Presumably KMH grew up in the '50s and '60s, and knows of that which he speaks. Not. (Written like someone who views the '50s and '60s as ancient history.)

Oh, while Obama views his identity as black, and attends a church that espouses Black Liberation Theology, he nonetheless couldn't be racist against whites because genetically he's half white. Huh?

Also, races don't have issues, people have issues. And people don't have issues with races, except usually in the form of gross stereotypes, but then people don't have issues with individuals on the basis of gross stereotypes--unless they think race is the definition of what makes a person who they are.

I don't think race is the definition of who you are--except to the extent you make race the defining characteristic of who you are--as Obama has done by attending a church that espouses the racist rants of Black Liberation Theology.

Racism will no longer be an issue when people no longer talk about it. That's called moving on, remember? Unfortunately, there will always be folks like KMH who believe that the lack of evidence--people not talking about racism--is precisely evidence of pretending that racism doesn't exist.

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail...

[m]

"ON MSNBC: Brutal - MSNBC is presenting black ministers who insist that Wright is way out of the mainstream, and that most black churches preach a more traditional Christian message of love. Ooops."

Is there a link to the MSNBC presentation? Nothing of that nature showing up on the MSNC homepage.

[PATTY]

SHOWS OBAMA HAS BAD JUDGEMENT!

Wright, Obama's longtime spiritual adviser and pastor of his Chicago church, was off Obama's African American Religious Leadership Committee as of last night, said campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor, who didn't elaborate. The move follows calls for Obama to sever connections to Wright after news outlets began airing some of the pastor's past sermons.

Obama said he knew Wright to occasionally be a fierce critic of U.S. policy and that the pastor sometimes made controversially remarks in church that he disagreed with, but he said he never heard Wright talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms. The comments that have become a source of debate recently "were not only wrong but divisive" and have raised questions among voters, he said.

FUNNY A FEW DAYS AGO HE SAID " HE DID NOT KNOW"?
Obama said he knew Wright to occasionally be a fierce critic of U.S. policy
SO TELL US OBAMA YOU DIDN'T KNOW OR YOU KNEW? OH THATS RIGHT AFTER YOUR SPEECH NO QUESTIONS FROM THE MEDIA OR ANYONE!
SO I TAKE THE COMMENTS WRIGHT MADE ABOUT THE US (911) YOU HEARD!

[PATTY]

Hope that the American public, regardless of their ethnicity, will wake up and see what kind of a politician Barak Obama really is. Can we believe that he is a good American and will uphold the office of the Presidency of America according to the essence and nature of the Constitution? He claims that he has attended this church for most of his adult life and has been mentored by its pastor, yet he does not espouse the belief system of the Pastor or the church. Why is he there if not to receive and give back? Is it not his Christian duty? Does this mean that he has grown up in America, gone through the formal educational system which has furthered his career, yet he disagrees with that as well? This is really scary stuff to me! And about the racism issue; TRUE Christianity is about 1 race - the HUMAN race. Christians believe that we are all created in the image of God. We all have an obligation to live godly, to love one another, to respect and honor one another regardless of the color of our skin or economic status or level of education or abilities, to repent where we have hurt God and man, to do justly, and to bring about healing and reconciliation. Christians believe that we are to be a part of the solution, not to create bigger problems because we have been marginalized. The Gospel is all about a Man Who was brutally murdered, forgiving those who murdered Him, and bringing healing, not retaliation and revenge. He can not be the people's President of The United States of America. Please people wake up.