Sen. Obama delivered a significant speech today in Philadelphia. It was designed to help answer the controversy surrounding his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Most commentators have described this speech as crucial to the larger direction of the campaign. Take a look and leave some feedback. How do you think the speech functioned to address this controversy?
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3 comments:
I'm tempted to just say "it was great" and leave it at that. Because it was great.
I think the key line was when he said he could no more disown his pastor than he could his white grandmother, who once confessed she was afraid of black men when she walked by them, and occasionally used a racists terms that made him cringe. He acknowledged that Wright's racial divisiveness is a problem, but refused to let those comments become localized onto Wright. It -- racial division and the sowing of racial division for political gain--is a shared problem and everyone is complicit. These two people are imperfect, and so is Obama (he said) and so are we all.
It's a long, and winding but very concrete speech that definitely will reward return viewing and reading.
I've been invited onto Fox radio Richmond to talk about it tomorrow a.m. Any advice?
Reading a transcript of the speech, I found it very substantive and thoughtful; campaign speeches so often offer simplistic or superficial treatments of complex issues, but Obama actually allowed room for nuance and ambiguity, giving an honest take on this important topic. In doing so, he trusted his audience to engage in a difficult, intelligent national discussion.
Peggy Noonan (conservative, and a former speechwriter) offered a mostly favorable review of Obama's speech that acknowledged how refreshing this approach was in forgoing perfunctory applause lines for deeper observations.
You can read it here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120604775960652829.html?mod=todays_columnists
So I went on the radio about this and basically said what a lot of people have said. Nothing big.
Interesting: the station played "Ebony and Ivory" at the beginning of the segment, and later "Let's Get it On." Amusing attempt at humor and representation of "black" culture.
I like what jgoebel said and want to echo his sentiments. If this is a controversy, then it pits a few clips of Wright replayed ad nauseum by the "objective" media against a 37 minute response which you will have to read or watch repeatedly to appreciate. If Obama's detractors want to tie him to the divisive words of Rev Wright, they must now contend with the "Perfect Union" address. Though some have made hay by taking the "typical white person" comment out of context, he left little room for sniping in a speech that made the media look like it was fanning a dying flame anyway.
That Reverend Wright is angry about white racism should not come as a surprise to anyone.
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