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Sen. Barack Obama delivered a speech on race in America Tuesday before a friendly crowd in Philadelphia. Obama had hoped to stop his freefall in opinion polls caused by a reaction to the publicity surrounding the inflammatory sermons of his mentor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The Illinois senator scored high on Chris Matthews' "tingle meter" evoking a comparison to Abraham Lincoln. Other gushing Old Media talking heads suggested oratory on par with Dr. Martin Luther King. I'm going to go all Simon Cowell here and say that Obama's speech was rather average as oratory. It was simply not moving and inspirational....

Barack Obama took the stage this morning to give what was billed as a "major speech on race." It was, of course, an attempt to rescue his campaign from the revelation that his so-called spiritual mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, espouses a virulently anti-American and antiwhite worldview called "black liberation theology." <--snip--> What Obama is evading is that this "profoundly distorted view" is not just some passing emotion. It is what Wright himself, in the "talking points" page of his congregation's Web site, describes as "systematized black liberation theology." As we noted yesterday, Wright credits James Cone of New York's...

Obama's speech was thoughtful, history-rich, deftly composed and, in parts, refreshingly candid about racial divides in America and the sources of those divides. However, he spoke as if he was an innocent bystander to the history he recounted. Obama discussed our nation's failings as though he was powerless to act previously or presently. Obama lamented, "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." That is true. Although...

Barack Obama, Victor Davis Hanson, and a few others on his response.

Thank God for Barack Obama. For until his "More Perfect Union" speech last Tuesday, it seems it never occurred to anyone that America needed to talk about race. "Maybe this'll be the beginning of a conversation," Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan proclaimed on "Meet the Press." According to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, just the fact of Obama's address proves that a "national dialogue on race" is "essential." The Chicago Tribune reported that "many voters, black and white, say they were moved by Obama's speech ... which they see as a long-awaited invitation to begin an honest, calm...

March 27, 2008, 0:00 a.m. God Bless AmericaThe speech Obama could have given. By Victor Davis Hanson Had Sen. Barack Obama (D., Ill.) said the following words in his speech last week on race in America, his problems with his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, would probably now be over: “You have all heard the racist and anti-American outbursts of my pastor Rev. Wright. They are all inexcusable. His speeches have forced me to reexamine my long association with Trinity United Church of Christ. And so it is with regret that I must now leave that church. “I had...

Barack Obama's speech last week addressing his 20-year relationship with his radical pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was very well done, yet unconvincing. Obama sought to explain that relationship and why he could not end this close association, despite the minister's hate-filled rhetoric. He said, "There will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Rev. Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church?" Yes, those are the questions that people are asking. Many of Rev. Wright's incendiary statements are on videos sold by his church. Minister...

Jonah Goldberg puts his tongue firmly in his cheek:Thank God for Barack Obama. Until his “More Perfect Union” speech last Tuesday, it seems it never occurred to anyone that America needed to talk about race. “Maybe this’ll be the beginning of a conversation,” Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan proclaimed on Meet the Press. The Chicago Tribune reported that “many voters, black and white, say they were moved by Obama’s speech ... which they see as a long-awaited invitation to begin an honest, calm national dialogue about race.” Newspaper editorial boards agree. In the words of the San Diego Union-Tribune:...

Barack Obama's "More Perfect Union" speech of March 18 was a transpicuous opprobrium intended to obfuscate, shift blame and cast all churchdom in the same light as his mentor and pastor. In reality, his speech provided us with a closer look into Obama the man, and suffice it to say, he came up woefully lacking. In his speech, Obama called slavery America's original sin. I beg to differ on strict theological grounds (of which he and/or his mentor/pastor are welcome to debate me). America's original sin is the same as original sin has been from the beginning – it was...

Even as Barack Obama’s speech on race Tuesday morning was being widely hailed for its candor on a subject about which Americans—and, it must be said, especially liberal Americans—are notoriously less than candid, it strived to set, and limit, the terms of this long overdue conversation. Yes, Obama acknowledged, there is vast miscommunication between the races, a constant misreading of signals and intent. Things get said on both sides that, while regrettable, aren’t meant precisely as they may sound to ears of a different color. Obama readily admitted that his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, as a man who came of age...

Maybe, just maybe, it’s now worth at least asking whether Hillary Clinton might wind up as the Democratic candidate for vice president. When the chatter about a Democratic “dream ticket” began last year, it was easy to dismiss. Either Clinton or Obama would win a clear victory in the primaries and, after what inevitably would be a contentious campaign, each would want as little to do with the other as possible. Clinton, if she emerged victorious, would instead choose some kind of national security graybeard to her political right, a retired general perhaps, or maybe even a Republican. Likewise, Obama...

In some ways, Barack Obama's speech on race last week was as brilliant as it was nuanced. But for all its rhetorical beauty, it was also an enormous step backward and, in the end, a rather self-serving call for more discussion about racial grievance in a country that has already done way too much talking. Until last week, so much of Obama's appeal lay in the fact that he was not asking us to talk about the racial divide. Instead, he offered himself as a living and breathing symbol of racial reconciliation; his very origins pointed to the goal of...

When Democrats contemplate the apocalypse these days, they have visions of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton slugging it out à la Ted Kennedy and Jimmy Carter at the 1980 convention. The campaign's current trajectory is, in fact, alarmingly similar to the one that produced that disastrous affair. Back then, Carter had built up a delegate lead with early wins in Iowa, New Hampshire, and several Southern states. But, as the primary season dragged on, Kennedy began pocketing big states and gaining momentum. Once all the voting ended and Kennedy came up short, he eyed the New York convention as a...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Barack Obama's speech last week, hastily prepared to extinguish the firestorm over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, won critical praise for style and substance but failed politically. By elevating the question of race in America, the front-running Democratic presidential candidate has deepened the dilemma created by his campaign's success against the party establishment's anointed choice, Hillary Clinton. In rejecting the racist views of his longtime spiritual mentor but not disowning him, Obama has unwittingly enhanced his image as the African-American candidate -- not just a remarkable candidate who happens to be black. That poses a racial dilemma for...

It is a tribute to Hillary Clinton that even though, rationally, political soothsayers think she can no longer win, irrationally, they wonder how she will pull it off. It's impossible to imagine The Terminator, as a former aide calls her, giving up. Unless every circuit is out, she'll regenerate enough to claw her way out of the grave, crawl through the Rezko Memorial Lawn and up Obama's wall, hurl her torso into the house and brutally haunt his dreams. "It's like one of those movies where you think you know the end, but then you watch with your fingers over...

Hello, Hillary? Hate to wake you, but it's 3 o'clock in the morning, and we have a real crisis. It's your campaign, senator. It's Hail Mary time. You've lost the bid for a revote in Florida and, it seems, in Michigan, which means your prospects for prevailing over Barack Obama in the primary popular vote by June are vanishing fast. The Illinois senator, meanwhile, has just delivered a JFK-like speech on race in America--a savvy move that may well have stanched the hemorrhaging of his campaign over the controversial remarks made by his pastor, Jeremiah Wright. The mood could be...

Even though Barack Obama has "moved on" from the messy association that he has recently been forced to explain to man who had been his pastor for 20 years, it is clear - the voters haven't. There are legitimate questions being raised about a relationship that spans a generation and the beliefs of a man who has on multiple dozens of occasions issued some of the most vitriolic, bigoted, racism imaginable in America today. No doubt one of the most infamous video moments recently unearthed was Jeremiah Wright's use of what he cleverly believed to be a cute play on...

WASHINGTON -It is already easy to imagine the Republican attack ads against Barack Obama. They open with video of his wife, Michelle, saying she was proud of America "for the first time in my adult lifetime" because of her husband's presidential candidacy. Cut to the Illinois Senator explaining that he doesn't wear an American flag lapel pin because it is a "substitute for true patriotism." Then flash a clip of Obama explaining that his Caucasian grandmother was a "typical white person" because she uttered racial epithets and was afraid of black people. Finally, the coup de grace, pictures of Obama's...

Click on link to read WaPo arab writer suggesting Obama's speech can be applied to terrorists too.

The Christian Century Magazine News March 25, 2008 IRS probes appearance by Obama at UCC convention The Internal Revenue Service has notified the United Church of Christ that it has opened an investigation into possible "political activities" connected with Senator Barack Obama's speech at the denomination's national convention last year. UCC president John H. Thomas termed the investigation "disturbing," but said that church officials took great care to see that Obama's appearance at the UCC General Synod meeting last June in Hartford, Connecticut, "met appropriate legal and moral standards." Engaging in partisan political acts can endanger a church body's tax-exempt...