Posted on 03/24/2008 1:46:59 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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 unity and, from his own account, created in him a desire to bring together opposing sides.
Throughout the campaign, Hillary Rodham Clinton's surrogates repeatedly tried to bait Obama into talking about race; they worked to pigeonhole him (and marginalize him) as the "black candidate." But in the end, it was Obama's own alliances that tripped him up and obliged him to directly address a subject (one that he now says we "cannot afford to ignore") that he had so deftly avoided -- or as the Obamaphiles had it, transcended. For all the kudos the Illinois senator has received for his candor, the very act of delivering Tuesday's address was a defeat. Obama was a much more powerful force for racial progress when he so effortlessly symbolized it, rather than when he called on us to address "old wounds."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
This is the core of the problem for "race relations".
There are those that would keep the grievances of the black man in the forefront, if only to further their own wealth and power.
He broke one of the cardinal rules of politics:
Do not let your political enemies define you.........
Live by the race card, die by the race card.
Yeah, anyone who reads the news, listens to radio or even watches evening news...would see through that speech. However the bulk of Obama’s support is obviously coming from the O. J. Simpson crowd, (sorry for that stereotype, but it’s true). West Virginia’s crowds were polled and very few if any had heard about reverend White.
Kennedy gave his speech to a group of Christian and Jewieh clergy. He fielded questions. He went into the lion’s den. Obama spoke to a padded crowd.
Black people in this country will be free when they vote for a black candidate for reasons other than the color of his skin.
susie
Yeah, anyone who reads the news, listens to radio or even watches evening news...would see through that speech. However the bulk of Obama’s support is obviously coming from the O. J. Simpson crowd, (sorry for that stereotype, but it’s true). West Virginia’s crowds were polled and very few if any had heard about reverend White.
Kennedy gave his speech to a group of Christian and Jewieh clergy. He fielded questions. He went into the lion’s den. Obama spoke to a padded crowd.
This mirror’s Kristol’s excellent article from today.
Please see: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/24/opinion/24kristol.html?_r=3&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
It’s not what you say... it’s HOW you say it!
What about a conservative black candidate?
Most blacks would not vote for him/her. You can hear this in their vitriol for people like Rice and Thomas.
I don’t think it can be refuted that the first black and/or woman president will be a conservative.
Come on Barrack granny goes under the bus your pastor gets your admiration and support for hating America but the real crime is your lack of judgement. Wright was a liar and wrong for preaching this junk to the congregation. You stood idly by and allowed him to preach lies. You lack courage and judgement you should have corrected him and shown him truth had you attempted that you would be in a much better position to talk about transendence instead I am sure you were too busy stamping out MLK’s dream on a young conservative judicial nominee...
Though her reasoning matches quite a few around here - She'd vote against Hilary or McCain - if McCain's running against Hillary, she'll hold her nose. If Obama’s running against him, she'll buy the dogma that Obama’s less worse than McCain.
No need to be sorry about speaking the truth.
Do not let your political enemies define you.........
He didn't let his enemies define him so much as allow them to reveal how he has defined himself for the past two decades.
Sums it up rather nicely.
I'm not going to read this article having sworn to never read the LA Times again. I mean never, ever, ever.
OTOH, the first paragraph is stunning in it's accuracy. So unlike the Times. The writer will likely be gone before the sun sets on downtown LA.
I bet the right black conservative could muster 20% of the black vote for Republicans. That would be more than enough.
The fact that there are black candidates they won’t vote for doesn’t negate the fact that many, if offered a choice of 2 liberal candidates, will choose the black one. Hillary would likely have gotten their votes had Obama not run.
susie
Frankly, there was nothing brilliant about that speech. Only a liberal presstitute would imagine that it was. Also, only a starry eyed liberal would ever have imagined, after looking even briefly into his political record and his church, that Barack really meant what he said about rising above race, since he has made a political living out of playing the race card ever since he got to Chicago.
But it’s true that he revealed himself in this speech. There was nothing revealed that couldn’t have been seen by anyone who bothered to look. But he did manage to put it right out there where it was simply unavoidable.
Throwing his white grandmother under the bus after she spent many years lovingly raising him and paying for his private education, after his feckless parents abandoned him, was the worst aspect of that speech, however. He deserves to have that contemptuous phrase, “typical white person,” follow him around for the rest of his hopefully short political career.
First two sentences of the piece say it all.
I have a white male friend, about 60, who used to be moderate right but has gone over to the dark side, who has fallen head over heels for Obama. The speech cemented his feelings. I find that incomprehensible, but it’s so. Lots of mushy-headed liberals said “Right on!” after The Oration, so while we may think the guy laid a big egg, the Messiah’s disciples think it ranks right up there with the Sermon on the Mount.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.