Comments on: More on the Speech

by: joanr16

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:17:49 +0000

Um, OTB, the well was already poisoned with Kool-Aid. Obama did nothing to add to that. If anything, his March 18th speech provided a partial antidote.

Every negative commenter above needs to read the speech in its entirety. (And it’s not our problem if you have a tiny attention span or comprehension difficulties.) And if you still don’t get it, then there was nothing Obama could have said that would have pleased you. For whatever reason.

by: Outside The Beltway ¦ OTB

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:21:44 +0000

Obama’s Speech: Poisoning the Well

One of the major strains of reaction to Barack Obama’s “More Perfect Union” speech is that those who are not persuaded by it are therefore racist or at least unreasoning fools. Poisoning the well in this manner may be an effective rh…

by: RAW

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 13:17:13 +0000

At every point here Obama is being just the type of candidate we are always asking for, no double talk,just stepping up and meeting the challenge come what may. I don’t agree with everything on his platform but he certainly rises above the muck and with a lot of style too. (I do wish we could talk about his Pastor’s comments also, instead of sweeping them aside. We are in this because of our foreign policies, not because “they hate our freedom”)

by: Pug

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 13:03:28 +0000

And I am not a conservative just someone who isn’t bambazooled by the okey-doke.

Comment by Joeg — March 18, 2008 @ 6:48 pm

Joeg may not be bamboozled by the okey-doke but he sure is bamboozled by something.

Don’t you just love the “I’m not a conservative, but …” part?

by: scottreads

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:36:32 +0000

I think joeg’s comment and maha’s post illustrate the dynamic we’re going to have to see play out. Will we take the speech as it was intended, an invitation in a very Christian spirit to consider my own faults and baggage before ritualistically trashing my neighbor for his, and an adult speech to other adults saying that he understands their anger but that anger isn’t enough and that we need to solve the underlying problems (HELLO!!!! CLASS!!!! ECONOMIC INEQUALITY!!!!) that cause it? Or will we take it as joeg does, as an “okey-doke” from a bamboozling black man who didn’t fry his own minister in oil satisfyingly and bloodcurdlingly enough for his mostly white audience (which would never hold a white politician to the same standard)? I guess we’ll see.

by: joe in oklahoma

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 05:54:50 +0000

maha to Joeg lol

yes, Joeg failed to see that Obama put it on the line, took a risk not to run from a controversy or smooth it over with platitudes…he spoke courageously about an issue politicians are afraid to talk about (they frequently talk around it)
Joeg ignored the fact that Obama may be the first politician in this cycle, maybe even this new century to actually invite people to a national dialogue (kinda essential if our democracy is to recover/survive)

by: Swami

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 05:28:03 +0000

I got a little misty eyed also..Guess it means I love America after all, and it’s amurka that I can’t stand..Bush and Cheney haven’t hardened my heart to the point where the light of hope can’t penetrate it.

Bush says the war in Iraq is “worth it”.. Talk about relativity? With all the untold suffering Bush has created, his claim to worth is a black hole of logic. It’s always worth it when you don’t have to pay the price, but if we could go beyond the grave and ask the 100’s of thousands of innocents who paid with their lives doe Bush’s Iraqi fiasco, I think Bush would find some disagreement.

Bush is a sick, sick creature..and Cheney is worse.

by: maha

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 04:09:03 +0000

Joeg — There are a lot of martyrdom complexes out there. Yours is slightly larger than Cleveland, for example.

by: Swami

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 01:33:57 +0000

A good speech..He even got to throw a dart into Rush Limbaugh’s fat ass.

by: moonbat

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:02:28 +0000

I finally saw the speech on CrooksAndLiars. It brought tears to my eyes, and did a lot to bring me over to Obama’s side. In my view he completely knocked the ball out of the park. Several reactions:

1) Who else but someone like Obama could’ve spoken so authentically and eloquently about such a difficult topic? This raises the bar for discourse not only on race, but on talking about difficult issues in general, in this day and age of dumbed down juvenile repartee.

2) Especially after eight years of infantile, stomach turning pronouncements by you know who… Or years of equivocating or triangulating by nearly any other hack politician…

3) I understand Obama wrote the speech himself (there’s a diary on DailyKos about this, I unfortunately can’t link to it at this time). Not only can he form complete sentences, and speak in coherent paragraphs, and do so eloquently on an intellectual level and be as broadly inclusive as possible, he did all this out of his own genius.

People who aren’t intellectual won’t know or care what Obama said. But the fact that he is favorably impressing at least some on the right, says a lot for him.