[speechlesstx]

Well, he nailed it - at least for those enraptured by the man. I'm not buying what he has to sell.

[NeedKarma]

I'm not buying what he has to sell.

Well duh!

[BABRAM]

Well, he nailed it - at least for those enraptured by the man. I'm not buying what he has to sell.

That's your decision to turn down a good education.

[speechlesstx]

Well duh!

Brilliant response as usual NK.

[NeedKarma]

Brilliant response as usual NK.

Thanks man. I'm known for my succinctness as I don't have nearly the free time as you do.

[tomder55]

Not bad ; he almost nailed it . If I had a chance to ask him some questions here are a few off the top of my head

Senator you talk about the need to end segregation but you attend a church that advances the notion of seperateness. How do you explain the contradiction ?
I dispute your contention about the Reagan coalition.Reagan earned the votes of nearly 100 million Americans in his two landslide victories, and yet we're supposed to believe that his success was built on white racism.

Senator I won't quibble too much as to your timeline about the Constitutional convention . (it occurred in the heat of the summer... not spring )

Senator do you think that the acceptance of liberal paternalism has helped advance the lot of the black family ? How do you explain the upwardly mobile black community that has embraced rather than rejected "middleclassness" ;that has embraced "hope " rather than the victimization that your pastor Rev Wright exploits ?

I still maintain that his relationship with Rev Wright would be a disqualifier for anyone else. But he probably brought himself some time to prove that he and Rev Wright are at odds on the issues that the Rev rants about.

Bottom line for me will be in the details . He has yet to distance himself from the worn out liberal prescriptions that has I believe contributed to the lack of progress he outlined. So what will really change with an Obama Presidency ? A new face selling the same product ?

[speechlesstx]

That's your decision to turn down a good education.

Bobby, come on, I know he's your guy and that's fine, but in over 40 years of attending church I have never, ever heard anything remotely close to the bile spewed by Wright - and yes I have attended black churches a few times as well.

It doesn't take much of an education to know all along that Obama was lying over the weekend about what he knew of his pastor and mentor. You don't spend 20 years in a church and not have a really good idea of what goes on there, and for Obama to spin this as he has today. Kathryn Jean Lopez made a good point about Obama's speech:

There's also this that bothers me: His loyalty to Wright seems to run a little too deep. As a friend e-mailed me during the speech: "I always thought what created a controversy was that statements made or positions held might be true, notwithstanding that they were unpopular and even bracing. In that sense, Wright's statements that Obama heard were crank statements, not controversial statements, no matter how hard he tries to sugarcoat."

They were not merely "controversial" statements they were extreme and outrageous. They offend me as a white man, as an American and as a Christian and give valid reason to question Obama's judgment. It was just 3 weeks ago that Obama said this of his church:

“I don’t think that my church is actually particularly controversial. It is a member of the United Church of Christ. It’s got a choir. We sing hymnals. We talk about scripture. You would feel at home if you were there.”

I guess that depends on who "you" might be. Today, the pastor of this not "particularly controversial" church has "expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel," not to mention "divisive" and "racially charged."

Which is it? Time and again of late Obama and his campaign have been entirely inconsistent, on this issue, on NAFTA, on Iraq, and on why he disinvited Wright from giving the invocation at his announcement ceremony. Why am I to believe him now, and why should I believe his rhetoric about uniting the nation and healing racial divides? I need an education to spot this kind of inconsistency?

[speechlesstx]

Bottom line for me will be in the details . He has yet to distance himself from the worn out liberal prescriptions that has I believe contributed to the lack of progress he outlined. So what will really change with an Obama Presidency ? A new face selling the same product ?

Peter Kirsanow at NRO makes a decent case that he will be selling the same product.

Victor Davis Hansen calls his speech An Elegant Farce about moral equivalence.

Thomas Sowell sums up the controversy this way:

The fact that Obama talks differently than Jeremiah Wright does not mean that his track record is different. Barack Obama’s voting record in the Senate is perfectly consistent with the far-left ideology and the grievance culture, just as his wife’s statement that she was never proud of her country before is consistent with that ideology.

Senator Barack Obama’s political success thus far has been a blow for equality. But equality has its down side.

Equality means that a black demagogue who has been exposed as a phony deserves exactly the same treatment as a white demagogue who has been exposed as a phony.

We don’t need a president of the United States who got to the White House by talking one way, voting a very different way in the Senate, and who for 20 years followed a man whose words and deeds contradict Obama’s carefully crafted election-year image.

My sympathies exactly.

[Skell]

Ahem, this was not part of the column as tom pointed out:



Bobby's notice that this was an "email chain going around" should have been your first clue that this portion was added by the blogger, not the columnist.

My apologies. I retract my statement then.

[speechlesstx]

My apologies. I retract my statement then.

Not a problem Skell. :)

[Skell]

I really enjoyed that speech. Once again his words inspired me. They gave me hope that the US isn't as doomed as it sometimes appears to the world. Something that you guys see as hollow, I see as an unyielding desire to change the world as we see it.

If Obama is lying then he is one of the greatest actors of all time. But given the US's record of electing former / part time actors to government positions it shouldn't really matter :)

[BABRAM]

I raised the past because of Obama's claim that he was never present, never heard any of Wright's nonsense.

You've been out of the loop then. Obama did say he heard some comments, not just everything that has been brought up as news. He doesn't attend every service, he can't. He's running a campaign for heavens sake. Most all the candidates are sleep deprived with the exception for McCain, who looks like he never woke up. But for the record, Obama did re-address this all again today in a very educational speech.

My apologies. I retract my statement then.

Actually I think Skell got the point while others whiffed. Again the columnist had his say in the email and then a Republican supporter added to it that Obama was the anti-Christ. Yes. An email going around for perhaps thousands, maybe millions, that will read their sick dynamic duo view, as it circulates as a whole.