tumbledry

Obama’s Speech

You know that speech by Obama? The one that tackled race in America head-on? The really good one? Here’s a spot of commentary from Daily Kos: State of the Nation:

And, of course, what you discover is that other than the speeches Obama has written for himself, the last time a major speech was written without the aid of a speechwriter by a president or presidential candidate was Nixon’s “Great Silent Majority” speech delivered on October 13, 1969.

Now that was a good speech. Evil, no doubt, to its very core, and designed to proliferate the feelings that allowed the great Southern Strategy success, but a good speech nevertheless.

In other words, not in my lifetime. And I am oldish.
I have kids and wear dark socks with slippers and complain about the quality of my lawn and get hungover way too easily. But in the last 37 years there hasn’t been a speech like this written by the man himself. Not like this.

Here is a chair. Regardless of who you support, or what you think of Obama, I want you to sit here, right here on this chair and consider something wonderful.

Here’s a quick excerpt from the speech, clipped by John Gruber, transcribed by Greg Sargent:

We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. 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.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.”

The best comment, I think, about this speech, came from John Stewart

“Obama dared to speak to Americans as adults…”

Yes, he did.

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Comments

Nils

YES WE CAN!!

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