The Speech
Yeah. I could link to the complete transcript or to the youtube but what is the point? Everybody who is anybody has at least heard or read parts of it.
Yesterday I watched all of it on youtube.
I am embarrassed to admit that it was almost like a religious experience for me. I was stunned by the honesty of it and by the way Obama is able to take a red hot subject and cool it down to the point of being comfortable.
And I was impressed beyond words at the fact that Obama refused to cut Reverend Wrights throat and throw him under the bus even though large portions of the right and the left expected him to do that. That is what would have been politically expedient. Obama showed his political inexperience by refusing to act like a politician. That was a breath of fresh air.
I have heard that the speech will cost him political points in Ohio. I have heard that the speech will have an adverse affect on white, middle class males.
Well I am a white middle class male who voted for Ron Paul in the primary and for the first time in many election cycles I will be willing to vote for one of the two mainstream party candidates. I can guarantee you that I will disagree politically with Obama more times than I agree with him. But I would also disagree with McCain more times than I agree with him. So what is a man to do? My biggest problem with McCain is that he sees government as a hammer and therefore all problems are nails. The concept of open and honest discussions as a means to an end seems to elude him. Maybe that is an incorrect analysis of the man on my point but it is how I see him.
This morning Tucker Carlson was wondering how Obama could still consider the Reverend a friend. I could not help but wonder why MSNBC still has Tucker on the payroll. The speech made it abundantly clear that Obama knows more about the man than a handful of sentences being played over and over and over on every 24 hour a day news station in the world. And the willingness Obama showed to judge a man based on his totality rather than the sum of a few of his more negative parts is not the kind of thing I have gotten used to seeing in politics.
Yesterday I was sprinkled by the dust of the Magical Unity Pony.
And come November, if he gets the nomination, I will put a checkmark by his name.
I would put an Obama bumper sticker on my truck but around here somebody would probably cut my tires.
There are common sense limits to my support.
Barack did throw him under the bus: “
No, wait. That was Obama on Don Imus. Apparently, judging a man based on his totality rather than the sum of a few of his more negative parts is yet another one of those cases (my, there sure seem to be a lot of them) where standards are higher or lower, depending on the “community”.
Related writings on sermons and associations with pastors that are pertinent.