(Wow. Somehow I failed to post this to the frontpage. Oops. - promoted by Matt Singer)
I haven't had a chance to watch a video of the delivery, but the written speech is simply incredible and all of the things that our politics too often lacks: honesty, intelligence, a sense of history.
I was worried at some point that Barack Obama would succumb to pressure to disown Reverend Wright, not because Wright's statements didn't deserve disowning, but because if the man himself did, it was a situation of colossally bad judgment on Obama's part to be so closely tied to the man for years.
Fundamentally, I think it is interesting the desire to view Wright's speech through a political lens rather than a religious one. Wright's angry language is actually a Hallmark of America's religious movements, dating back to Jonathan Edwards and "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Portraying a God angry at our nation for various sins, whether inequality, racism, slavery, or abortion -- well, that's actually as American as apple pie.
Beyond that, Obama did what he does best -- he reminded us fundamentally that we are one nation, united more by common concerns than we are divided by our distrust.
A number of political minds I've seen respond are noting that we have yet to see whether his speech works politically -- that he's on uncharted ground here. He is, but it's the space he's fundamentally put himself and his campaign into.
I wrote months ago that Obama was running a uniquely Obamian campaign for President, largely predicated on the same ideas espoused in his rhetoric. Today, he proved that again.
His methods may fail. Our nation may prove that it will choose division, rancor, and distrust over faith, unity, and trust, but if that is the case, I think we'd be hard-pressed to accuse Obama of the failure. |
