Admit it: This has been the most magnificent campaign of our lives. Entertaining, uplifting, full of surprise and great characters. Who will ever forget Mike Huckabee or Ron Paul. And today it outdid itself.
Obama’s speech on race was stunning. I can’t be the only sophisticated person who was blown away. I thought I was used to his style, to the quality of his thought. I thought he was going to be careful. I was amazed. What he did was call us to the better angels of our nature. He told us that blacks are angry for a reason. He said that racism has been persistent and disabling. He said that blacks have been viciously discriminated against. And he said this in a way that was not divisive. This is true leadership. Rather than pandering to the racists out there, as Hillary has been doing, he spoke openly of a deep divide in American society and then called on American idealism to deal with it. He embarrassed the racists for the backwardness of their vision.
This guy is truly historic. I want him to be my president. And I can’t wait for his speech–one day, not so long from now–on Israel/Palestine. The day that he honestly addresses Palestinian suffering and doesn’t scare Jews, but brings us together. And forward.
It was an amazing speech. It's so great to hear a presidential candidate speak in ways that are intelligent, nuanced and challenging, rather than dumbed-down. I too want to hear a great Obama speech on Israel/Palestine. But it might be longer off than you think, Phil. Today Obama castigated "a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam."
It is wrong to blame all the problems of the Middle East on Israel, to be sure. But his statement effectively absolves Israel's expansionist policies of any role in the deformations in the region and in our own policies. Any Likud supporter could have uttered the part of Obama's speech above. It's the same old stuff. This was not a brave moment in the speech.
I know it's a campaign. And this wasn't a speech about the Middle East where he could elaborate. So I'll try to be optimistic….
I especially liked the part where he rhetorically tossed his grandmother under the bus. Nice touch.
Mr. Obama’s Profile in Courage
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/opinion/19wed1.html
Published: March 19, 2008
There are moments — increasingly rare in risk-abhorrent modern campaigns — when politicians are called upon to bare their fundamental beliefs. In the best of these moments, the speaker does not just salve the current political wound, but also illuminates larger, troubling issues that the nation is wrestling with.
So, maybe the New York Times does not have its head up its …
"Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – …a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam."
Yep, sounds like a true departure. No one has uttered such bold words in the US of A before.
Hey Phil,
You've mentioned Bill Kristol's column in the NYT a few times. You surely saw the one yesterday in which he smeared Obama. It turns out that he didn't even check a simple fact, even though that fact was the centerpiece of his column. What does it take to get fired from the NYT?!?
If you don't believe me, note that the NYT has updated their website:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/opinion/17kristol.html?ref=opinion
More info here:
link to marcambinder.theatlantic.com
I guess I wasn't quite as impressed as you were, Phil. For one thing I didn't care for his casual dismissal of his white grandmother for being afraid of black males on the street. Why is that so contemptible? Jessie Jackson once said he was always relieved to see, when he heard footsteps behind him at night, that they were those of whites, rather than blacks.
(I notice Obama speaks of his white grandmother in the present tense. Is she still alive? If so, I wonder what she thinks of his shaming her like this. I at least hope her nursing home turned off the TV when he started to talk about her.)
Finally, I wonder how Obama expects to heal this country's racial divisions if (1) he blames them soley on white racism and (2) if he wasn't able to do anything about the Rev. Wright's racism despite behing a congregant there for 20 years.
One of the news stations said that Michelle Obama was very emotional during the speech. Was it because she was moved by the power of her husband's oratory, or was she simply shamed and frustrated beyond enduring at hearing her husband criticize the Rev. Wright?
Weren't you alive for JFK's election, Phil? That had to have been more momentous. I love Obama and am inspired, but to me JFK is almost mythical. Perhaps I'm just too cynical at this point.
It was a terrific speech.
Obama spoke like an intelligent, mature and honest adult.
What a welcome development in American politics.
Michael Blaine
www.rudelystamped.blogspot.com
A great speech by a great speech maker.
He certainly had to be very careful, because if he had thrown Wright to the wolves he would have lost the entire African-American vote right there.
Instead he seems to be offering himself to the nation as some sort of large communion wafer on whose ingestion the sins of slavery will be washed away in the blood of the lamb as it were. If I had to define what bothers me most about Barack Obama, it is that idea of transubstantiation he offers: that through his body we will be saved.
It isn't that easy.
William Faulkner defined the situation: "The past isn't dead; it isn't even past."
The past is always with us… to paraphrase Joe Louis, "we can run, but we can't hide."
The Indians (from India) put it in an even more graphic expression, "so the meal, so the flavor of the belch".
The Reverend Wright is the just the "flavor of the belch."
There is some idea going around that somehow, through Obama's divine grace, I suppose, we can miraculously put hundreds of years of history in the icebox and begin anew.
What he doesn't really answer is how somebody with only three years in the Senate qualifies to be President of the United States, but I suppose that would be asking too much of one speech.
How sad to see Phil being hoodwinked by Obama. Yes it's true that Foxman,Dershowitz and the more rabid Likudites among the neocons think Obama just isn't sincere enough in his bowing to AIPAC. No doubt they have hidden agendas and/or suffer from extreme paranoia.
But the speech yesterday by Obama seems to have taken away any grounds for their fear.
Those of us who support justice for the Palestinians should consider how abjectly Obama bowed to the Zionist line:
Here is the relevant passage from Obama's speech.
link to huffingtonpost.com
"But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam"
There is no need to wait and hope fatously for Obama to reverse course in some future speech. He has told us in clear words where his loyalties lie…
It would be my advice to progressives, Muslims, and other Arab Americans in Michigan
to send Obama a message and stay home.
Does it bother anyone of you defenders of all that is moral and holy, Ed, Keating, and all the rest, that he publicly humiliated his grandmother. The woman that supposedly raised him after his father tap danced back to Africa and his mother was where ever she was
"Does it bother anyone of you defenders of all that is moral and holy, Ed, Keating, and all the rest, that he publicly humiliated his grandmother."
It bothers hell out of me, for one.
"What does it take to get fired from the NYT?!?"
Former La. Gov. Edwin Edwards answered that: getting caught in bed with a live boy or a dead girl. Go, Billy K.!
As for Obama's speech: Muslims are the new Willie Horton. High fives at the ADL! Reverend Wright answers to Jesus; Barack answers to Malcolm Hoenlein.
for me a vote for obama is a vote for change, any kind of change. a vote for obama is a vote for a glimmer of hope that he turns out to be what he pretends to be.
and i wouldnt be surprised if he turns out to be the exact opposite of what he is showcasing to america.
but he is the only hope for change, the other two are decrepit and antiquated in their presentation of politics to americans.
in baracks speech there is the hint of a rebel with a conscience.
the question then becomes, will he muzzle his own conscience to serve the governing state.
other presidents have proven to be mirror opposites of what they campaigned as, their words mean whatever they deemed them to mean at the time they said them and depending on other reasoning adjustments.
"There is no need to wait and hope fatously for Obama to reverse course in some future speech. He has told us in clear words where his loyalties lie…
It would be my advice to progressives, Muslims, and other Arab Americans in Michigan
to send Obama a message and stay home."
Yes. Yes. Yes.
We can only be against the current crop of two-party candidates, none of them will intervene in our disastrous foreign policy's course.
We can only channel our energies against them, our support is ultimately only enabling.
Stay home, people. Vote for Nader, or Ron Paul as an independent, or just stay home. If you vote Obama, or Clinton, or McCain (I actually have the most faith in the last–he's on the way out soon, sometimes in old men there is a moment of reckoning, of conscience, and well who knows–it's fucking crazy! But not as crazy as HOPING Obama will change his mind about Israel/Palestine!!!)
Do not enable the two parties to continue this course of militarism and client regime maintaining empire.
.
Arthur Silber, a blogger whom I admire as much as our own Philip Weiss, winds up and throws a 300 mph fastball that blasts a six-foot wide smoking hole through the heart of Obama's mendacious speech, in a column titled "Obama's Whitewash":
————
Obama has fully embraced the lies at the heart of mythologized America — an embrace that is underscored by his inclusion of this phrase: "a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam." In this manner, Obama confirms that he will continue our policy of global interventionism including our endless interventions in the Middle East, which have been unceasing ever since World War I. Obama embraces all the lies that support that policy, and he will challenge none of them. (See "Songs of Death" for many more details concerning Obama's embrace of this murderous policy.)
Almost every politician lies, and most politicians lie repeatedly. Yet in one sense, Obama's speech is exceptional, rare and unique — but not for any of the reasons offered by Obama's uncritical, mindless adulators. It is exceptional for this reason: it is rare that a candidate will announce in such stark, comprehensive terms that he will lie about every fact of moment, about every aspect of our history that affects the crises of today and that has led to them, about everything that might challenge the mythological view of America. But that is what Obama achieved with this speech. It may be a remarkable achievement — a remarkable and detestable one, and one that promises endless destruction in the future, both here and abroad.
Is that what many Americans want? Tragically, the answer appears to be yes. Truth must be destroyed, no matter how many lives and how much suffering are required. Americans will accept anything else — war, genocide, economic collapse, further terrorist attacks in the U.S. — but the truth must be denied.
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/
I am glad others saw many of the things I saw. Even considering just how low the bar is set in that Preznit Stammer McMalaprop can barely string together a few coherent or credible sentences to save his life, Sen. Obama responded to the Pastor Wright memes (prior to speech kept hearing "Obama is toast" and "political suicide" from the MSM) in an effective and engaging style (If the Hildabeast actually cared about the party or the country, she drop out and give Sen. Obama her full endorsement).
Re: the comment –
"Does it bother anyone of you defenders of all that is moral and holy, Ed, Keating, and all the rest, that he publicly humiliated his grandmother."
It bothers hell out of me, for one.
Posted by: David Seaton | March 19, 2008 at 03:23 AM"
- I don't think that is what he did. He shared that to make a valid point. Jesse Jackson once confessed he would often be wary of being on the same side of the street as potentially threatening black males.
As far as the perfect candidate for seeking true peace and justice in the Middle East, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Though I have heard others express that McCain might turn out to be like Supreme Courts Justices that revealed their liberal side once appointed to the court, McCain's association with Sen. Quisling Lieberman (I-Conn) leads me to believe otherwise. My perception of Sen. Obama's committment to fairness, his thoughtfulness and insight, and his ability to lead rather than merely triangulate, to amass allies in his drive to continue to perfect the union, means that we have the best chance at moving towards a universalist view of humanity instead of applying separate standards of justice.
I am so very hopeful that this man will become the President (and at the same time so fearful that the vast conglomeration of special interests – including HRC – will seek to keep him out of the office "by any means necessary"), that I look forward to the day I can cease watching a criminal pResident like a hawk because I don't trust him, and instead feel that things are in good hands because he can be trusted to do the right thing and that I don't have to monitor his or her every move.
—
Bart: Do you worry about how to vote on the issues?
Homer: No, son. That's what we pay politicians for.
(If only!)
In answering whether Obama publicly humiliated his grandmother, LanceThruster said: "I don't think that is what he did. He shared that to make a valid point. Jessie Jackson. . ."
Obama wasn't saying that his grandmother had the right to be afraid of black males on the street. He was saying he was ashamed of her for stereotyping black males.
In fact, the fears of Obama's grandmother were (and are) entirely legitimate. All one has to do is look at the crime stats to see that. Yet, to help get himself win the nomination, Obama happily threw his grandmother under the bus. I just hope she is too old and too senile to have heard Obama's speech. Otherwise she'll die thinking her grandson is ashamed of her.
Several seem very concerned about the grandmother. I imagine that he would have cleared it with her if she if still alive. Frankly we don't know and unless we have information to the contrary we shouldn't worry
about it. My dear departed grandmother somehow thought that the Palestinians were responsible for the Holocaust and nothing would change her mind. People are like that.