March 19, 2008
Obama’s race speech
Various people have been in touch with me - by e-mail and on the blog - to ask what I thought of Obama’s speech on race and the Wright controversy? Wasn’t it a great speech, and doesn’t it prove that I was wrong to dismiss Obama as a master of empty rhetoric?
Difficult. Yes, it was a great speech. And perhaps I should just leave it at that. Any attempt at further explanation threatens to leave me sounding like one of those politicians, saying - “I do not for a moment withdraw any of my previous statements on this matter. However, in the light of recent events, I would like to issue some further remarks, expanding upon my previous statements and adding some important context.”
Well, I do not for a moment…etc, etc. But Obama’s race speech was completely different from his standard stump/victory speech - because of the context in which it was delivered. In his regular campaign appearances, Obama’s goal is simply to pump up the crowd with vague and vacuous applause lines. He is a master at producing euphoria. At one campaign stop, he was even cheered to the rafters simply for blowing his nose.
But in the race speech, he was subdued, on the defensive - and facing an issue that threatened to blow up his campaign. His long and close association with a pastor given to outrageous anti-American and anti-white statements looks like a political disaster. Under the circumstances, Obama abandoned his ra-ra inspirational stuff and gave a speech that acknowledged the complexity and ambiguity of the subject he was dealing with. Clive Crook, a long-time defender of Obama, gives a long and careful analysis of the speech.
I think it is true that Obama’s speech was thoughtful, nuanced and willing to engage in an intelligent fashion with the most difficult issue in the US - racial politics. It’s not true - as a reverential piece in the New York Times suggests - that Obama was uniquely brave in talking about race. Michael Gerson, Bush’s former speechwriter, points out in his recent book that when he sat down to read every inaugural speech given by American presidents, it became clear to him that the single biggest issue running through American history is race. Far from being unable to talk about racial issues, American politicians cannot get off the subject. But - fair play - Obama’s speech was one of the best recent political statements that I’ve read on the subject
Let’s face it, however, it was also a very careful political balancing act. Had Obama simply disowned Wright, he would have looked disloyal, panicky - and like a man running away from his past. That would have been politically fatal. As it is, he has played a disastrous hand very well.
But I still think that this episode will be very damaging for him. Clive suggests on his blog that it might even work out in his favour. The best response to this comes from one of the commenters on the Crook blog - “Are you on crack man?”
Gideon,
Posted by: David Seaton | March 19th, 2008 at 1:15 pm | Report this commentI just wrote a lengthy post in my blog on the subject of Obama’s speech. I don’t want to hog space in your blog with it, but I’d like you to take a look at it. The link is:
http://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com/
To start I believe under no circumstances should hatred be preached from the pulpit, no excuse or bias can ever change my thinging. But I took the basis of his speech to him playing the victim card by going back to slavery and not talking about any other events that have been helpful to minorities. To me racism cannot end until all sides and individuals accept responsiblitiy for there own actions and by making excuses for this preacher’s statements he just continues the racial divide.
Posted by: Steven Case | March 19th, 2008 at 2:34 pm | Report this commentIssues cannot be resolved by ignoring them, and I think that we can all agree that the issue of race still remains unresolved in the USA.
Obama did not make any excuses - he outlined what two of the sides in this issue feel, and presented arguments explaining why each side feels the way it does (few opinions in this world are entirely unjustified, and understanding the justifications is the first step of trying to change/correct the opinions). And he did this very, very well.
Until the speech, I was very much in the Obama-is-all-style-no-substance crowd. His economic protectionism still grates strongly. But the speech demonstrated a man of a very keen and nuanced intellect. Substance galore.
Posted by: Andrei Timoshenko | March 19th, 2008 at 2:53 pm | Report this commentWell, I want him to win very badly, and I am very worried. The speech was perfect in substance and style. He has perfect pitch for our post-global world…he is also refinement, intellect, light, humble but with enourmous confidence….so many qualities that I long to see reflected around me and that I identify with ….but it will take maturity, brutal honesty about race relations and even some generousity for many voters to get beyond Pastor Wright’s rants. Not sure we as a country are there yet. It is a very crass time…we have become a very crass people and culture.
When I was growing up I heard my now deceased grandmother lament at literally every election “the the world would have been a different world if Adlai Stevenson had become president….!!!!” I am ashamed to say I know nothing about him so I had no idea then or no idea now what she was talking about! I said to a girlfriend the other day ….”Oh no! I hope I don’t end up sounding like my grandmother someday with everyone around me smirking…..and uttering there she goes again with her…the world would have been a different world if Obama has beome President”!!!!
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | March 19th, 2008 at 3:56 pm | Report this commentThe thing I find troubling, is that Obama takes his young children to listen to the hate-spewing pastor.
If, as he claims in his speech, Wright “expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country?, why would he expose his children to it? He talks of ending the stalemate between black and white - but is this the way to prepare the next generation for ending the stalemate? (Or indeed, what of his wife’s influence, with her evident lack of pride in and seething resentment towards an America which, for all its faults, provided her with a superb education and increasingly, wealth and power?).
If Obama is so capable of effecting “change”, then why hasn’t he managed to temper the distorted perceptions of the old Rev after twenty years?
Finally, what is one to make of the disparity between his perceived view of Wright (”The man I met more than 20 years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another”) and the all too evident hatred of paleface expressed in the sermons?
Methinks he speaks with forked tongue.
Posted by: Laura | March 19th, 2008 at 5:02 pm | Report this commentObama’s speech was anything but empty rhetoric. I’ve remained somewhat skeptical of his campaign and its’ promises from the beginning, but I have to admit that I was genuinely moved by his speech yesterday.
Rather than offer lofty phrases without meaning, the man directly addressed truths in American society often neglected and dodged by politicians and society at large. It is so rare to hear a political leader speak with such open honesty.
Glen Beck, a conservative commentator, in speaking about his religious conversion, said something to the effect of - though he remained skeptical of religion, he was so overcome with the beautiful honesty and faith that it provided that even if they were drinking kool-aid in the basement, he didn’t care, he wanted to drink the kool-aid.
I now feel the same way about Mr. Obama. I’m not sure I agree with everything he says, but his willingness to speak the truth and not sidestep a difficult question has earned him my vote and my respect.
Posted by: Adam | March 19th, 2008 at 7:11 pm | Report this commentGideon-that crack comment was priceless–wish I would have thought of it.
Have the Democrats been played by Karl Rove again?
“The strange case of conservative pundits and their love for Barack Obama” from a recent article in The Village Voice.
“And in this landmark election without incumbents, the media wing of the Republican Party, in particular, has quite visibly been playing that game. Right-leaning pundits for months now have very openly not just called for Hillary Clinton’s head, but also coddled and promoted Barack Obama, salivating over the prospect of facing him in November.
Meanwhile, voters have been echoing that program: Barack Obama has been beating Hillary Clinton in part because Republicans are helping him.
Once Obama became the apparent nominee, especially after the Wisconsin primary on February 19, these same pundits began turning on him (though, it has now become clear, perhaps a bit prematurely). As often as some of them have declared that Clinton is the most beatable Democrat, their own agenda suggested otherwise. George Will may have inadvertently tipped this card when he wrote after Obama prospered on Super Tuesday: “The Republican Party’s not-so-secret weapon always is the Democratic Party, with its entertaining thirst for living dangerously.” It is possible, of course, that their hatred of the Clintons was all that drove these right-wing pundits in their early targeting of Hillary, but it’s more likely that they were collectively so confident of beating the black guy in November that they became his unofficial advance team.”
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0811,374100,374100,2.html/full
Posted by: Ann H | March 19th, 2008 at 8:04 pm | Report this commentI defended Obama on your blog after your earlier criticism of him. Now I have changed my mind about him
I believe he will lose the nomination now. He will lose Pennsyvania, and he will lose much of the white support he had before.
And if he does get the nomination, I think McCain will defeat him.
The Farrakhan endorsement was bad enough. Now, IMO, the Pastor Wright issue has finished him off. A great many white voters will be too fearful to vote for him now. He has become too black, too closely associated with the angry black view that blames America for all their problems. White Americans want a leader who is positive with a message of hope for all Americans, not one possibly tainted by anger and blame directed at them!
I know you will say his message is positive, etc. But I am telling you what many white middle class American’s are going to think and feel in their gut after this revelation. And his speech yesterday did not do enough to win them back; he did not distance himself enough from Rev. Wright. Instead he tried to elevate the argument to one of race retaliations in its entirety in order to deflect attention from his relationship with Rev. Wright. That will not work with working class whites.
I volunteered and donated money to Obama’s campaign, but I am disappointed now. First he said he didn’t hear Rev. Wright make those statements, and that he would have joined a different church if he had heard such things repeatedly. But in his speech yesterday Obama said he DID hear Wright say things like that, “Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely…”
This is a clear contradiction of his earlier statement that he was not aware of those comments, AND it contradicts his declaration that he would have changed churches had he known of Rev Wright’s views!
Further, IMO, it shows poor judgement to stay with a church out of loyalty, when you strongly disagree with many of that pastor’s views. Loyalty to unrighteous people or organizations is no virtue. Just as Bush’s loyalty to Cheney, the Iraq War, the neocon view of the world, etc showed poor judgement.
We need a president that has a strong commitment to high ideals and principles. And when he or she learns that a friend, colleague, or previously adhered to philosophy, church, or organization is found to be in contradiction with those high ideals, then he or she has the courage and good judgement to walk away from them and find ones that do.
Additonally, in Obama’s two books, I learned that he was not brought up as a Christian, instead he was taught about many different religions – and I considered this a good thing. But yet he found it expedient to join a church while working in Chicago. And then later it was politically expedient for him to remain with the church, because, as we all know, no one can get elected President in this country who is not a church-going Christian.
So I think it is highly ironic that Obama, who I think is probably agnostic if not atheistic, is being brought down by religion! I would have preferred that he remained agnostic and not joined any church. At least he would have avoided this guilt by association!
Posted by: KJ Foehr | March 19th, 2008 at 9:10 pm | Report this commentTo repudiate ones faith in a country where 80% consider themselves religious is to sound a death knell to your national political ambitions. To threaten white voters with black power politics is also likely to lead to failure. Accepting either brand would have killed Obama’s campaign. His response fit perfectly with the brand he has been presenting - a moderate candidate that is engaged in dialog with all of his constituents, regardless of their beliefs.
Posted by: Matt | March 19th, 2008 at 11:27 pm | Report this commentObama’s campaign has been gravely wounded by the revelations of his long-term associations with politically Afro-centric ministers. His speech may have sounded nice–rarely does he NOT give a speech that sounds nice–but he is now going to be viewed by the white electorate as “damaged goods”. A few weeks ago, American writer Shelby Steele (like Obama, he is mixed race and identifies as “black”) was interviewed on the Charlie Rose program where he stated that a black candidate for political office only will do well with white voters as long as he or she does not do or say things that make white voters uncomfortable (i.e. remind them of slavery, accuse the white majority of systematic oppression of blacks everywhere, accuse the white community of deliberately giving the black community HIV and drugs, etc). Whether anyone likes it or not, the Obama-Wright story has made white voters start to squirm, and once white voters squirm, black candidates pay a price at the voting booth.
Superdelegates may be pulling out their pro/con lists for supporting either Obama or Clinton and re-evaluating as we speak…
Posted by: Jeff | March 20th, 2008 at 12:20 am | Report this commentA large section of the African American community agrees with Wright.
Posted by: Milton Takei | March 20th, 2008 at 2:10 am | Report this commentGideon, I suspect that you simply have not read enough of Obama’s speeches. Many of them are packed with substance - sometimes overstuffed. See his Janesville, WI speech on the economy, not to mention today’s major speech on foreign policy. Nor is what you’ve called hot air simply window dressing around more or less substance. At his best, which is often, Obama sets his policy prescriptions within a broad strategic or even philosophical context. For example, at Janesville he cast his economic program as a way to restore “balance” and “fairness” after years of intemperate tax cutting and decades of risk shift. His foreign policy speech swoops into the mindsets of various people hostile to the US around the globe and lays out a program to win back hearts and minds by leading by example on multiple fronts. It also establishes a strategic rationale for moving troops out of Iraq:
“The central front in the war against terror is not Iraq, and it never was. What more could America’s enemies ask for than an endless war where they recruit new followers and try out new tactics on a battlefield so far from their base of operations? That is why my presidency will shift our focus. Rather than fight a war that does not need to be fought, we need to start fighting the battles that need to be won on the central front of the war against al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“This is the area where the 9/11 attacks were planned. This is where Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants still hide. This is where extremism poses its greatest threat. Yet in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, we have pursued flawed strategies that are too distant from the needs of the people, and too timid in pursuit of our common enemies….
“It is not too late to prevail in Afghanistan. But we cannot prevail until we reduce our commitment in Iraq, which will allow us to do what I called for last August – providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our efforts in Afghanistan.”
You are missing out on the most powerful political rhetoric in a generation — in the U.S. in any case.
Posted by: xpostfactoid | March 20th, 2008 at 3:04 am | Report this commentWhat about the double standard, Mr. Rachman? George W. Bush was (s)elected as president despite (or perhaps because of) his having spoken at white supremacist Bob Jones University, which banned interracial dating at the time. Alleged connections between Republican politicians and white supremacist figures have been rampant ever since Richard Nixon’s notorious “Southern Strategy” in the 1970’s.
Even now, the media are so indundated with anti-Latino, anti-Asian immigrant hate that no less of an organization than the Anti-Defamation League, which has been fighting against anti-Semitism and other prejudice in America for some 85 years, issued a statement of condemnation recently.
Clearly, Barack Obama is a black candidate who, by refusing to throw Jeremiah Wright under the bus, has shown that he, Obama, “doesn’t know his place” in the minds of, I am afraid, all too many voters.
Posted by: algasema | March 20th, 2008 at 7:08 am | Report this commentWhile I often disagree with Ann H., I have to admit that I share some of her suspicions about why the Republican right (some of it) has been so friendly to Obama, dating from the time that Karl Rove’s article appeared in the Financial Times. Maybe they do think that Hillary is a stronger candidate and that they can have a field day against a black opponent in the fall.
The Jeremiah Wright based attacks on Obama are evidence of this. The problem, however, is that Hillary is not the stronger candidate. Too many voters do not trust her, and she has to bear a good deal of the responsibility for this, despite the fact that, admittedly, she has also been the target of some of the most vile character assassination attacks in our history.
In my previous post, I misspelled “strategy” and “Michigan”. My apologies.
Posted by: algasema | March 20th, 2008 at 7:26 am | Report this commentWith all the media focus on whether either of the Democrats are “electable”, John McCain himself has almost completely escaped scrutiny. This is most unfortunate for the country, because the footage of his recent visit to Iraq showed a tired, disconnected, unfocused man whose fitness to be “commander in chief” is very much in question. Can any one imagine, for example, what would have happened if Barack Obama had made the same terrible and repeated gaffes about Iran’s allegedly training “Al Qaeda” fighters that forced Joe Lieberman to whisper in McCain’s ear so that he could correct himself? Obama would have been so skewered in the media as “inexperienced” and “unready” that even the Jeremiah Wright smear might have been off the front pages for a day or so.
McCain’s disconnect from reality goes far beyond these gaffes, however. McCain lives in a world similar to the Bush/Cheney bubble where all the problems of the world are “solved” by boosting American “power” and “prestige” and by throwing even more money at our bloated military. McCain has no knowledge of and little interest in economics, and is therefore singularly unequipped to deal with the financial crises that threaten to engulf us. Getting him even to acknowledge that these problems exist may run up against his ferocious temper, which both his friends and opponents have attested to. Is this someone whose fingers should be on the nuclear trigger?
Just as race has come to the fore in the Obama campaign, and questions of trustworthiness are never far from the surface in Hillary’s, the unpleasant question of age must be faced with regard to McCain. Does he really have the physical stamina and mental focus to serve as president? Before anyone jumps on me for “ageism”, I hasten to mention that I am only a year younger than McCain myself and, as a busy practicing lawyer, am fully committed to the concept of older people playing important roles in society. But, when one reaches 70, the reality of our limitations, both physical and in terms of mental concentration, becomes all too apparent.
This is not to say that there have not been plenty of vigorous, youthful leaders in the world who are well past this age. But McCain’s recent appearance and statements raise legitimate doubts as to whether he is among them.
Roger Algase
Posted by: algasema | March 20th, 2008 at 9:46 am | Report this commentThis is in response to the comment Steven Case wrote, I agree with several points you made about this speech. I feel the speech for what it was , was a good, inspirational speech about the ills of not just our society but EVERY SOCIETY and every race of people on this planet. Racism will always exist, and sometimes, its not fair to call somethings racist. I wasn’t offended when his pastor made comments about Hillary being white, he was right in almost every aspect. I was a little offended in how he emphasized being WWWHHHHite! Growing up in MD. I too remember being called out by my color as much as my name. Its accepted by some for some reason, but I can hardly see it being ok to call out a african american as hey “black boy”. I think we all need to just not be so sensitive to such things. His speech was worthy of any good community rally, church function or college campus. But it does nothing for his political career in my opinion, and really, why hasn’t anyone asked this question? How much can he relate to black americans who were enslaved in this country, when his association to the african american community is not linked to them at all? His father was from Africa, and never enslaved by this country, and his whole connection to the black race has no connection here in the states other then what he created after years of elite private schools and colleges. Great man but alot of hype.
Posted by: wayne | March 20th, 2008 at 8:24 pm | Report this commentWhat Obama did not do, that I wish he had done, was point out that much of what Rev. Wright says is true. It is really the US that has been the major purveyor of violence in the world and the reason why millions of people are impoverished and do not live in democratic societies today. There’s a long list of countries that were on the path to democracy before the US intervened in order to secure for itself cheap oil or some other resource. This is particularly true for Iran where the CIA was sent in to overthrow Mosedeq in 1953, a blunder that has turned out to be one of the worst in history. Too bad Americans are afraid to talk about the crimes that are committed in their name by their own government.
Posted by: Mark A. Goldman | March 21st, 2008 at 3:30 pm | Report this commentSo why can’t all the gloves come off on the race issue, Gideon?
Posted by: Tom | March 22nd, 2008 at 12:14 am | Report this commentTo have a spiritual mentor whose ideas are so perverse SPEAKS VOLUMES…..why isnt Obama just a smooth extension of the Black Power movement using guilt as his weapon to enter the White House…besides McCain will slaughter him- what a predicament for the Democrats - the super delegates should maybe consider a third candidate if they cannot arrange a dream ticket…
Posted by: bill haymes | March 30th, 2008 at 4:25 am | Report this comment