Peggy Noonan, who knows a bit about oratory, thought it was a good speech. So did Charles Murray.

I’m not so sure. One blogger counts me among those who “managed to miss the points” of Obama’s speech and pointed to my playful post over at “Chris Matthews’ Leg.”

What I do know is that Mr. Obama is an extraordinary speech giver. And in all sincerity and candor, I did find it startling and refreshing to hear a liberal Democrat politician (of any color) offer a good-faith articulation of the frustrations a “typical white person” feels about affirmative action and the Black grievance culture. Specifically, Obama said:

Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.          

For a lot of us who have heard nothing but demagogic Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton victim-speak for 30 years—this was pretty stunning stuff. As was Obama’s frank characterization of his pastor’s now-famous views about “White America”:

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country. . .          

Still, the speech that Chris Matthews described as “worthy of Lincoln” left me itching to ask the candidate some questions. (full text and video here)

I’m not trying to be clever or pedantic. It truly would go a long way toward lowering my skepticism about the Hope and Change Express to hear Senator Obama’s answers to a few queries. Here goes. . .

• In your speech, you movingly explained why people of Rev. Wright’s generation are carrying bitterness, scars and resentments. Since T.U.C.C. worship services were surely filled with impressionable young people week after week, I wonder . . .

1: Have you ever gone to young people in your church and encouraged them to consider an alternative to what you described as Rev. Wright’s “profoundly distorted view of our country.”   

2:  Have you ever gone to the leadership of your church and challenged what you described in your speech as Rev. Wright’s “profound mistake” that our society has made no progress on racism. 

3: Have you ever encouraged your children to disregard something they heard at church? If so, what? If not, why not?   

• It is now widely recognized across the political spectrum that many well-intentioned welfare programs of the 60s and 70s were in fact devastatingly destructive to the Black family unit and actually created the epidemic of fatherlessness that in turn led to an explosion of gangs, crime and swelling prison populations–all contributing to lowering of living standards and prospects for millions of African-Americans. Given this. . .

4:  Why in your speech, and elsewhere, have you called for a return to the kinds of statist, collectivist, top-down programs that have caused so much unintended damage and, yes, hopelessness?   

Many of those now actively supporting your candidacy have denounced and vilified Republican politicians in the past for even the most casual ties to a controversial clergy—ties much looser than those between you and Jeremiah Wright. So  . . .

5: Have you or will you admonish such supporters to view those associations with the charity and understanding you’re asking us to view your 20 year affiliation with Wright and T.U.C.C.?  

And in the spirit of bringing people together, will you denounce demogoguery and bigotry such as this, this, this, this and this? 

And this, this, this, and this. Or this, this, this and this? 

For most of this crazy election cycle, my waves of amusement, disgust, alarm and horror have not been triggered by Senator Obama himself, but rather by his ridiculous, ecstatic, clueless supporters. 

To be sure, Obama will be the most liberal major-party candidate for the White House since George McGovern. And if he wins he will be the least qualified since Jimmy Carter. I’m also convinced he would be as big, or bigger a disaster for this country as Carter. As for the speech? It was a fine one, though the breathless comparisons to MLK’s “I Have a Dream” address are silly and an insult to King’s achievement.  

And we would do well to keep in mind why the Obama speech became a campaign necessity. The revelations that the man who has been Barack Obama’s spiritual mentor and pastor for two decades spews American-loathing, racial bigotry and kooky conspiracy theories raised a legitimate question in millions of minds. Namely:

How can we reconcile Obama’s message of hope and change with his long, close affiliation with hate and pessimism?

“The Speech” was supposed to answer that question. But it really just changed the subject. So who among us really “missed the points”?

Senator Obama really is in an impossible situation. As I pointed out in this post below, the facts surrounding his choice of church for the last two decades really only leave two explanations to the intellectually honest observer:

1. Barack Obama actually believes the hateful and dangerous Black Liberation Theology that his pastor espouses.

2. He has been cynically and dishonestly attending Wright’s large Chicago church for two decades for political advantage.

Today the consummate soulless, political mercenary—Dick Morris—went “all in” on explanation number two. In a RealClearPolitics column Morris wrote:

Wright’s rantings are not reflective of Obama’s views on anything. Why did he stay in the church? Because he’s a black Chicago politician who comes from a mixed marriage and went to Columbia and Harvard. Suspected of not being black enough or sufficiently tied to the minority community, he needed the networking opportunities Wright afforded him in his church to get elected. If he had not risen to the top of Chicago black politics, we would never have heard of him. But obviously, he can’t say that.

Morris declares that Obama has the nomination sewn up and that if the Senator is the crafty, duplicitous, hyper-ambitious politician that one would have to be to be Mr. Explanation Number Two, he will survive this storm.

That is probably true. Obama the candidate will survive. But the mystique will not.

The pre-Wright Obama was the un-politician, the new and different kind of candidate who was above mere ambition. Beyond power seeking. Trans-ideological.

That myth is dying.  Every new Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright hate bomb exposed will strip off another layer of the messianic veneer, leaving nothing but another ambitious, ego-centric climber behind.

And the maddening thing for the Democrats who have hitched their hopes for White House power and glory to Obama’s rising star is that they can’t rush to his defense without looking like the hypocrites of the century.

Why? Because they have spent most of the last eight years throwing a walleyed indignant fit every time a Republican politician got within a hundred yards of a conservative preacher who was even remotely controversial. From those who criticized candidate George Bush for speaking at Bob Jones University back in 2000, to those who got the vapors two weeks ago when John McCain was endorsed by John Hagee.

Between those two examples lie thousands of instances of Dems and liberals wailing and gnashing their teeth about one Republican or another’s association with a “extremist” or “intolerant” minister.

They know they can’t defend Obama’s 20 year attendance at Trinity United Church of Christ without being clubbed about the head and shoulders with numerous reminders of past pronouncements like this one:

 The issue here has to do with the role of extremists in public life. Barack Obama never sought support from Louis Farrakhan, never appeared on stage with Farrakhan, never pronounced himself proud to be backed by Farrakhan, but was nonetheless asked on national television to specifically disavow the man. People don’t want to put a political coalition that includes Farrakhan in office. (Lefty Matt Yglesias, all worked up over Hagee’s endorsement of McCain.)

Bring it. And let the throttling commence. (How about you Andrew?)

 

I was in Junior High when I really went after Science Fiction with abandon. In my elementary school  years I had been a Hardy Boys man (boy). But along around 7th grade I read Robert Heinlien’s Have Space Suit Will Travel and I was hooked. From then on it was Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Heinlein’s racy, grown up stuff, and, of course, Arthur C. Clarke.

I had actually seen Clarke and Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey before I read my first Clarke book, Childhood’s End. Then The Fountains of Paradise and Islands in the Sky followed.

Clarke once said:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

He was 90 years old and his death was not a sudden one. My hope is that in the final months of his life, he applied that fertile imagination to the question of what lies beyond this life and sought answers from living God whose Creation Clarke so admired.

“The Leg” weighs in on the Obama speech over at CML.

Never in the history of American oratory has such soaring rhetoric been deployed so majestically in the service of campaign damage control.

 

Was it really only two weeks ago that Democrats and Liberals were in full, indignant cry over Pastor John Hagee’s endorsement of John McCain?  Of course, in this election cycle, two weeks is an eternity.

Now, with a new flaming Revered Dr. Jeremiah Wright hate-bomb dropping every four to five hours, I’m guessing Howard Dean and the folks at the official Democrat Party web site are so wishing they hadn’t written this:

John McCain Should Denounce Hagee Endorsement, Anti-Catholic Remarks

In his struggle to shore up his base, John McCain has once again cast aside his principles by embracing Rev. John Hagee, saying he was “pleased to have the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee,” despite his intolerant comments about Catholics, women, African Americans, Muslims and LGBT Americans.

Yes, way back on February 29,  the rafters of the liberal blogosphere were ringing with anguished laments about how “sad” and “revealing” it was that McCain would allow himself to be associated with someone as “divisive” as Pastor Hagee.

But for sweet irony, it’s hard to beat consummate liberal blowhard Glenn Greenwald’s posturing about the Hagee endorsement here. In the bright light of the Revelation of St. Wright, it’s so chock-full of petard-self-hoistage it’s hard to choose just one example. This nugget is tasty though. Greenwald wrote:

The fact that McCain thinks he can get away with openly embracing one of the most influential and hateful bigots in the country is a reflection of the profound media double standard he knows favors and protects him. Just imagine if Obama had issued a statement similar to McCain’s with regard to Farrakhan: “I am very proud of Minister Louis Farrakhan’s spiritual leadership to thousands of people” and “don’t have to agree with everyone who endorses my candidacy. I’m still ‘honored” to have his support.”

(emphasis is Greenwald’s)

Of course we don’t have to “imagine” Obama saying something like that. He has said precisely that. But not about some distant preacher he’s never even heard speak. He’s said it about his pastor and mentor of two decades.

Let’s set aside for a moment the dubious equating of John Hagee with Louis Farrakhan. The fact is, McCain, being McCain, quickly distanced himself from the Hagee endorsement. But as others have pointed out (here, here and here for example), there is no way Obama can repudiate Wright’s growing inventory of hateful and kooky pronouncements without either looking like an idiot or a conniving cynic.

The Obamas have sat under Wright’s teaching for more than 20 years. The title of Obama’s signature book, The Audacity of Hope, was inspired by a Wright sermon. Thus, we are left with only two possibilities:

1. Barack Obama actually believes the hateful and dangerous Black Liberation Theology that his pastor espouses.

2. He has been cynically and dishonestly attending Wright’s large Chicago church for two decades for political advantage.

Neither is a particularly flattering option—especially for a unifying political savior who’s going to help us all “rise above politics.”

But given Michelle Obama’s famous pronouncements about what a mean place America is and how she has not found a single thing about this country to feel pride in during her adult life, I think we can safely guess which of the two options above is true for her.

John Derbyshire says Rev. Wright is a fatal pre-existing condition for the Obama campaign.

The MSM can’t smother this, not in the age of the web, though they are trying mightily. (The Sunday New York Times “Week in Review” Section had nothing about Wright; neither did the main news section.) Americans are a fair-minded people, who find double standards obnoxious. A guy who says “nappy-headed ho’s” in an irreverent radio show is dragged round the city walls behind a chariot to the delighted howls of a mob of self-righteous “anti-racists”; yet a man who uses the authority of the cloth to damn our country and curse white people, is praised as a “biblical scholar” by a candidate for the presidency? I don’t think so. This won’t stand. The man is toast.

Propaganda posters from early in the 20th Century.

Propaganda posters from early in the 21st Century.

The creepy dimensions of the Left’s Obama fetish just continue to unfold. And if many of the official and unofficial Obama posters bear a striking resemblence to marxist and fascist “Glorious Leader” posters from last century, it’s no accident. The guy who is designing many of the Obama posters is the same guy whose “art” involves creating posters such as these.

American Digest has a fascinating analysis of this whole propaganda vibe. And as I suggested in the headline of this post, the same clueless trend-sheep that buy and wear Che Guevara T-shirts think the whole retro-propaganda thing is oh-so-very chic. And if you’re using it to sell jeans and skateboards, maybe it is.

But when you appropriate the aesthetic of those who marketed the divinization of Stalin, Hitler, Mao and the rest of the 20th Century’s blood-soaked, genocidal monsters in order to promote a candidate for the most powerful elected office in the world. . .

Well you’ve just turned the creepy knob to “11”.  

 

Chris Matthews’ Leg to Obama: “You Make Me Want to Be a Better Limb” 

The President was here this morning and spoke to a luncheon. I wasn’t able to attend but heard it was very good.

UPDATE: Here is a transcript of the President’s speech to the NRB.

Meanwhile, Friend-of-Blather, Bonnie has posted some healing reflections on the recent atrocity in Jerusalem. Read “Finding the Quiet Center.”

I’m sitting in one of the lobbies of the leviathan Gaylord Opryland Hotel watching the toupees go by.

I’m taking the annual dose of punishment required of all who wish to particupate in the Christian media industrial complex–attendance at the National Religious Broadcasters convention.

It’s sort of like that initiation ritual Richard Harris’ character had to endure to be a member of the Indian tribe in “A Man Called Horse.” Only the ordeal happens every year.

Okay. Perhaps I’m being a bit dramatic. You hardly ever get hung up by hooks through your chesty parts at these things.