I listened to much of the speech, and I agree with the commentator from Politico.com who said it was kind of a rorhsach test. If you already liked Obama, you thought it was great. If you didn't, you found it embarrasssingly lame.
Clearly it was staged to look presidential, with all the flags, blue background, etc. What I found odd was all his talk about failing schools,etc. Who runs those urban school systems? Certainly not the "enemy" Rev. Wright is so worked up about, eg rich white people. Those schools Obama practically accused whites of ruining or ignoring because of racism are run largely by blacks or liberal democrats. Name me a major urban school system not run by them, and of course their biggest supporters, the teachers' unions.
Similarly, I found his implicit equating of his grandmother, the racist who was "afraid" of black men on the street, and Wright to be very unappealing. Equating an elderly woman's fear of street crime with the raw hatred of whites and the US displayed by Wright and parlayed by him into a huge church filled with people who seemed to not only share but relish his hatred was tasteless.
I also resented Obama's implicit message, namely that whites somehow owe it to him to prove they aren't racist by voting for him. He's the one who has been misleading voters. Voters owe him nothing. The real obama is apparently not a post racial healing figure but a very typical minority politician who believes black anger is fully justified, that the main reason blacks are poor is white racism and that this country has a lengthy list of sins to answer for. He has plenty of lofty sounding phrases but nothing in the way of real solutions except more of the same failed liberal polciies, eg, more money, more government, more excuses.
Clearly it was staged to look presidential, with all the flags, blue background, etc. What I found odd was all his talk about failing schools,etc. Who runs those urban school systems? Certainly not the "enemy" Rev. Wright is so worked up about, eg rich white people. Those schools Obama practically accused whites of ruining or ignoring because of racism are run largely by blacks or liberal democrats. Name me a major urban school system not run by them, and of course their biggest supporters, the teachers' unions.
Similarly, I found his implicit equating of his grandmother, the racist who was "afraid" of black men on the street, and Wright to be very unappealing. Equating an elderly woman's fear of street crime with the raw hatred of whites and the US displayed by Wright and parlayed by him into a huge church filled with people who seemed to not only share but relish his hatred was tasteless.
I also resented Obama's implicit message, namely that whites somehow owe it to him to prove they aren't racist by voting for him. He's the one who has been misleading voters. Voters owe him nothing. The real obama is apparently not a post racial healing figure but a very typical minority politician who believes black anger is fully justified, that the main reason blacks are poor is white racism and that this country has a lengthy list of sins to answer for. He has plenty of lofty sounding phrases but nothing in the way of real solutions except more of the same failed liberal polciies, eg, more money, more government, more excuses.
