THE SPEECH; or, The Great Obfuscation

[CarolNYC]

From Stan at Clark's blog:

No question about it, it was a great speech -- superbly written and delivered. There was much of great importance and significance in it. The only problem is that it didn't answer the fundamental questions that made the speech necessary.

One of those questions is why he was silent on Jeremiah Wright's worst remarks for years, and why he only spoke up when Wright's hatred was exposed to the public and risked damage to his presidential campaign.

One of those questions is why he said at first he hadn't heard those remarks and then admitted that he had. In most circles, that's called a lie.

One of the questions is why he allowed his and other children to hear the hatred spouted by his pastor. It was a very sophisticated speech -- too sophisticated for impressionable children and youth to understand it in depth.

One of the questions is whether or not he would have made this speech at all, even though much of what was in it needed to be said, had he not been under attack for associating with a hate-monger like his pastor. It was a necessary speech, not only to his campaign but to elevate the discussion about race in the country, but not under the circumstances under which it was delivered.

He spent about 15 seconds condemning Wright's remarks and about 29 minutes defending why someone would make such remarks. Using the logic Obama articulated, he would excuse the worst statements of Osama bin Laden, any of Iran's ayatollahs, and Yassir Arafat. After all, their hateful remarks are also based on the history of persecuted peoples.

The speech was nothing more than an apologia for hateful language.

He used 221 years of American history to hide the fact that he can't answer the basic questions. Unable to explain those answers, he turned it into a philosophical treatise. It was enlightening to have this history analyzed in depth by someone who is both brilliant and who has felt (some of) the effects of that history. But it did nothing to explain why, now that he's running for President, he waited so long.z

Finally, he said that he couldn't "disown" Wright. In the movie "Ike" starring Tom Selleck (highly recommended, by the way), there's an incident in which a good friend of Eisenhower's from West Point days, who had a drinking problem, talked openly in a bar about the timing of the impending invasion of the Normandy beaches. A Lieutenant overhead the friend's comments and reported it to his superior. When Ike heard what had happened, he cashiered the friend and sent him packing in disgrace with a demotion.

A leader can't let personal loyalty risk the mission. A person who cannot do what Ike did has no business being President.

http://securingamerica.com/ccn/node/15052

[Qanisqineq]

1. That's something I was thinking about the other day

It's one thing for him to sit there and listen to the hateful speech of Wright if he disagrees, but why subject his children to it?

[durrrty libby]

3. Obviously, he is a go along to get along type, until someone

calls him on it. Then he scurries like a rat looking for excuses.

He acted the same way on Rezko. Even all his political stances appear to be copied from Hillary

This is not the type of "leader" we need. Damn I can't stand that phony

[displacedtexan]

2. Another excellent analysis is posted at No Quarter.

Here's an excerpt:

So, is he saying that because Granny said some racist things more than once during his lifetime and she is white that we can now excuse Reverend Wright? Or is he saying that because Reverend Wright is like a member of his family and that well, racism runs in the family so there really isn’t anything he can do about it? It makes one wonder. But Obama finally offers the real excuse.

But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Jim Crow laws existed in 17 states: AL, AZ, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MD, MS, NM, NC, OK, SC, TX, VA, WV and WY. The Jim Crow laws did NOT exist throughout the entire United States. In fact they did not exist in Illinois where Reverend Wright preached his hate for those many decades. The President that put an end to the Jim Crow laws was a man from Texas. His name was Lyndon Baines Johnson. And Hillary was berated and declared a race baiter for bringing this fact up by Senator Obama’s campaign. In fact Senator Obama himself alluded to it. So much for his experience and capability trying to heal racial wounds. link

[Catchawave]

4. Why didn't Obama give his "historic" speech when

Don Imus screwed up? (Not defending what Imus said, mind you...) Instead Obama wanted him fired !

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3031317&page=1