2008 Primaries Thread 2: THE QUICKENING

lol, he bit a WJC line

It's interesting watching the Corner flail a bit on the speech. Even Lopez only admits to seeing 'nits,' which figures (in that they're trying to overblow them).

Faulkner quote!

"I'm hard to get, Steve. All you have to do is ask me."

This isn't going away, but this is a damn fine attempt at damage control.

"I'm hard to get, Steve. All you have to do is ask me."

?

(he helped write the screenplay/it was on tv the other night)

oh is that Big Sleep reference? okay gotcha

To Have and Have Not

where will Obama "lead" us? No one has a clue. (and I voted for him)

obama will lead us through the stargate, duh

Damn, this is so good.

I think he knocked that one out of the park

The Corner looks flummoxed:

Well there is something honest about that. To be disloyal would be wrong, because it's hard to believe Obama hasn't known for quite a while what Wright was all about. Talking about "bitterness," he's excusing Wright for his extremes ... and he's saying, White folks, meet 'the black community.' We're part of America too, just like my white grandmother who was afraid of black men walking on the street. We're America, and we're coming together through me.
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He's good. And Hillary Clinton saw it coming ... why she's wisely said that a speech isn't an achievement. If "white guilt" votes, Obama just won the nomination. The election is another thing, because Wright is still YouTubed and there is still the 3 A.M. phone call you want McCain, if any of those running, answering.

is there a stream of this shit that fucking works

fuck cnn

here's an entire you tube of the speech:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jwj0gLriTnk

nice try

wow that speech

WTF?

The strange thing about this speech is how much better it reads than it sounds. Obama’s speeches are usually the other way around: as written they’re cringe-inducing piles of painfully meaningless platitudes, but Obama gives them passion and cadence and makes them sound great. This speech as written is pretty deft and intelligent; it’s serious and interesting and is about the most effective way available to him to deal with the Wright mess, though it’s still unsuccessful in the end. But as delivered it is amazingly bloodless and dull; part moral hectoring part awkward defensiveness.

eh he def went for a more sober than usual tone - it seemed totally appropriate

Afred, is that from the Corner?

Yup.

Reactions are mixed (Goldberg: "It had some lovely moments and he came across as a remarkably classy and decent guy"; meanwhile K-Lo knows in her heart that only guilty white liberals could feel touched by this piece of oratory).

i'm not down with "israel's not the problem, radical islam is!"
also not down with "welfare made black people's problems worse"

i guess dude's got to play that game, though

regardless of what's actually in his head about such issues

let the gross simplifications commence!

i'm not down with "israel's not the problem, radical islam is!"
also not down with "welfare made black people's problems worse"

I guess I'm that much closer to not casting my meaningless November vote.

(if tracer's simplifs are accurate)

but this - freakin bravo:

"But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races."

my hat, were i wearing one, would be off -- a politician who's actually going THROUGH the difficulty instead of around it!!? now i've seen it all

morbs, those were points mentioned in passing and hardly the central points of his speech (although I'm not really down with those two points either).

i think an overlooked landmine lurking in wright's sermons was his condemnations of israel, which could be very easily exploited in the g.e., not necc as anti-semitic but as proof that obama doesn't have the right grounding and framework to lead america internationally, so he's heading this off at the pass

welfare snipes have become de rigeur for democrats, like some penance for the party having once supported generous unemployment benefits, decades ago

"israel's not the problem, radical islam is!"

I'm down with this. Israel's not anywhere near blameless, but fuck radical islamists.

He's not talking to Democrats all that much, here, he's talking to the electorate as a whole.

I'm not a Democrat, and he aint talkin to me

morbs, did you read or watch the speech?

no, he's talking to people who might be skeptical about voting for him, many of whom are Democrats

fuckin sweet speech

Great speech. I'm a Democrat, I already voted for him, and I hope to do so again in November.

Wow that speech!

As someone who doesn't know what to fill out for ethnicity on the census (can I just mark "everything"?), this one really hit home.

super-minor quibbles aside (as noted) - this speech is amazing

"We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change."

i wonder how whiny pundits will get about this one

Am I insane to think this speech has somehow managed to net an advantage out of the whole Wright controversy? It was an excellent speech, speaking directly and tolerantly to a deeply uncomfortable issue, and integrated flawlessly into his larger campaign themes. I suppose it depends on how it will play in the media and what clips the news shows pull from it, but I'm optimistic as the initial reactions have been overwhelmingly positive.

Just echoing what everyone else has said - incredibly stunning speech.

Predictable grumbling from the right about how Obama hasn't "transcended" race at all, but none of the Obama guys I know speak of him in transcendent terms.

(speaking for myself, I got bored in the last few minutes)

also, nice touch calling his candidacy 'imperfect,' sounding humble but not chastened.

wasn't obama's entire point that america itself hasn't transcended race?

xpost

I'm not a Democrat, and he aint talkin to me

Fair enough, Morbs, but be honest; you subscribe to a fairly minority political point of view in the US and this man wants to get elected.

I noticed Obama's own eyes seemed to glaze as he discussed welfare inequalities, as if he knew he was making a concession; he's much better when he articulates contradictions. In that sense, it's one of the best I've ever head. Rarely do you see a pol who accepts his own paradoxes and expects voters to be adult about it.

Fair enough, Morbs, but be honest; you subscribe to a fairly minority political point of view in the US and this man wants to get elected.

I'm not sure I've ever seen Morbs explain what he's for; only who he's against.

The anecdote at the end about the mustard sanwiches or whatever was a bit bizarre.

I doubt if this speech will make a lot of difference either way. People already impressed with Obama will be even more impressed. People who are not so impressed are probably not at this stage of the game going to be aroused by transcendental calls to unity. For people who think he's 'too black', a speech about race is only going to entrench those feelings, whatever the speech's ultimate message.

That story wasn't bizarre to me. Kids do the damnedest things when financial matters throw their families for a loop.

RW: Pundits be whinin'.

The speech needed to be effective rather than a stunnah, in the 'speak softly so people must pay attention carefully' mode. This it was. Also love the judo move of saying disowning Wright would be akin to disowning black community. Obama/Judo 08

Many of the header links to stories start with 'Obama refuses to disown pastor' but I just got the MomCall (the only reason this is interesting is because she's an avg 63 y/o swing voter with grievances and zero concept of identity politics and they don't post here much). She reckons a) he's out of the woods and b) she doesn't think the GOP will try to restart this if he's the nominee. To the second point: wait! 527s? She also thinks the Clintons are behind every single smear including releasing the Wright bats.